Do you understand that the Hydro-related grants are not for the Hydro team? They were allocated by the AADAO to separate teams (Zephyrus, Votion, Immunefi & Margined) who are building products tied to the Hub’s PoL effort. No one is claiming they should self-assess their own performance. Govmos proposed that the Hydro team handle supervision, and I’ve noted that if Grace takes that role, her bias against Hydro should not compromise teams that are meeting their obligations.
I appreciate that you put the proposal forward (yes vote for me), and I’m not at all surprised Grace supports it - that’s a bare minimum. What’s notable is that she waited for you to take action, despite the issues being the same for the past 6-8 months, likely ever since their Strategic Committee resigned. Grace is very vocal about potential conflicts of interest, yet in this case, she had a direct incentive not to advocate for a prompt wind-down, since her remuneration as part of Oversight depends on the DAO’s continued existence. Do you not see that at all?
You have not answered my questions, which were:
- how much have you received in total since joining as Oversight?
- what have you accomplished since joining as Oversight?
The Informal team did not support your candidacy. What exactly is unsportsmanlike about that?
Also Hydro is now separate from Informal and @pofftermatt (who leads the technical lead) and myself have already resigned. But even if you personally resent our involvement with Informal, that cannot justify biased decision-making in your oversight role at the AADAO.
We’ve requested your help precisely because we cannot get hold of the multi-sig members. You mentioned a month ago that you would circle back, but you haven’t done that. How do you suggest we move forward?
1.) she exposed and reported crystal clear misconduct and grift by GM, which resulted into core contributors removing him for the Dao - proving that the report was necessary.
She’s been responsive to every community member who reached out to here.
She discontinued a Grant before she was elected.
Made sure contributors don’t overpay because compensation tiers were established in the renewal proposal.
2.) the amount she made is important, because? The amount of money that was saved by removing Youssef (contributors had no choice but removing him be abuse everyone saw she’s right) probably makes up for the little she made 
and again, the numbers are in all the reports. It’s recommendable to read them, especially when given grants.
3.) inform initially voted NWV, even though instructions for voting during this special and first time election were clear: informal changed their vote after they were told they’re violating the rules during this election.
Brian agreed with me when I asked him about Informals vote.
How’s that not unsportsmanlike?
1- What did she do in the past 6-8 months specifically?
2- It’s not that important. I’m mostly interested in pointing out the double-standard.
3- I don’t remember Informal voting NWV on the AADAO elections. If that happened, please show me the transaction. Informal voted NWV on the Legal Defense Fund after she got sued by Jae. You think that’s wrong?
4- Is it appropriate for her to bring personal grievances against Informal or Hydro into her responsibilities at the AADAO?
- currently she’s helping to do the job that would have been core contributors job. Please learn about the different areas of responsibility.
- just Provided info about the current status of all remaining grants in the thread.
-
what double standard? Are you saying it would have been her job to propose this proposal months ago? If you talk about double standards, ask yourself why you’re not asking core contributors who have been asked by her for months to present such plan, why they haven’t done so months ago. Why aren’t you asking @0xjordy what his job is, and how much (more than grace) he’s making in this moment, without giving a single sign of being alive to the community - for months. Ask why Joni comes along with an aggressive reaction towards my proposal, saying that this is a Revanche act while you, Govmos, mag, highstakes and more people are here agreeing with the proposal.
I know for a fact that the amount she’s being paid for this job + the amount of unpaid extra hours are way below what she usually makes. Saying it’s malicious that only now she openly says that she agrees with this proposal and that she would have loved this to go on forever is not only wrong but idiotic. Also, thoughts on Joni being opposed to the proposal and coming up with the idea to reduce core contributors to 20%? You haven’t read the room if you think Grace is the one acting weird towards this proposal.
-
textbook whataboutism. This has nothing to do with aadao. Youre right tho: informal didn’t vote NWV but ‚no‘ on the election proposal.
The proposal clearly asked to only vote a yes vote for the candidate you’re voting for, informal didn’t care. Wanted to send a message instead.
You should expect a co founder of cosmos to use governance the way it’s meant to be - In this case , communicated in the proposal, only with a ‚yes‘ for the candidate you choose.
I mixed it up with informals NWV vote on 952. that’s another story (of a proposal that passed where informal voted NWV)
- you‘re blowing it up and have still not responded to the 4 points in which she elaborated why she thinks that Govmos idea isn’t good. And I think she backed it up.
I don’t plan to further engage in this, I know you’d vote yes. Thank you for that. Questions that you can answer yourself don’t belong in here. Also, you could have asked these questions months before, but you didn’t seem to care only until now. You probably don’t care too much about what you’re asking..
I care about impactful grants being cancelled because Grace holds personal grievances against Informal. And I would like Hydro to be judged on its own merits going forward.
As for the four points, the Hydro team wouldn’t be evaluating itself, it would be overseeing grants awarded to independent teams.
That said, if Grace can take the role with objectivity, I’d prefer she handles it and save us the time. And her own performance over the past 6-8 months is relevant in this context.
Hey, I believe in efficient, direct communication. You should’ve expressed this as your concern outright.
Should some version of this proposal pass with a mandate for oversight to drive closure of ops,
I see no cause to discontinue any of the “in progress” grants, with the possible exception of QF (Dorahacks). Rather than discontinuing support for quadratic funding, it might be more productive to revise the engagement to focus on hackathons instead, if possible. These are just preliminary thoughts though.
AADAO’s milestone assessments are uneven this maintenance cycle, esp when review involves other teams (eg Mesh Security grant w OGP). The Hydro eco grants total roughly $417k, so the review process should be thorough. I won’t shove any grantees into a premature timeline, and also feel it would be irresponsible to lean exclusively on your team’s eval of Hydro related deliverables.
I want to work productively with you, but in order for us to do that, you must communicate constructively. Plainly state your concerns/questions rather than engaging me w passive-aggressive barbs. Deal?
Bro, my personal opinions about any individual, team, or product don’t influence my decisions or actions. If they did, I’d have vetoed 90% of grants approved. That’s not the oversight job. Wrt grants, I strictly recommend termination only when there’s reliable, verified, objective, documented evidence of incompetence, misconduct, fraud, deceit, or an unachievable scope.
2 Likes
I have not engaged in passive-aggressive barbs, I responded to your comment characterizing Informal’s reports as “self-satisfied,” which you appeared to use as a basis to question our capacity to deal with the grants.
But I’m indeed ready to engage more productively. We have shared our assessments of the different “Hydro-related grants” with Joni, and I think that would be a good starting point.
1 Like
Update
Ventures
Two questions to resolve
- AADAO Trustee, Lemma Ltd.: custodian of investment agreements, can this role be transferred?
- “Protocol support”: investor outreach and ecosystem support now handled by the Ventures Lead/Jordan, can this role be transferred?
Discussion w AADAO Trustee, Lemma Ltd (re the above)
- 20 Jun: call held with Lemma, joined by Joni (Grants), Jordan (Ventures) and Delisse (Ops).
- Novating the agreements to transfer trustee responsibilities to the ICL is possible, but can be prohibitively expensive plus significant coordination time. Requires substantial legal spend from AADAO and ICL.
- Trustee and AADAO Oversight Member Recommendation: keep Lemma in place. Fees are already covered through end of 2026 and renewable at $6,000/yr for 2027–2028 (total: $12,000).
Hand-off Ventures Protocol Support to ICL
- Lemma can agree to transfer of Jordan’s ventures related “protocol-support” duties to ICL once it receives a formal and successful Cosmos Hub governance directive confirming ICL as the qualified successor for venture lead’s support responsibilities. For their own diligence and records, the Trustee asked Jordan to provide a written description of his current duties.
- Jordan described “protocol support” as brokering hub ecosystem and investor introductions, work ICL can handle more effectively due to its greater resources, network, and reputation. The document from Jordan to the trustee should not be a blocker, here. The Cosmos Hub community can confirm ICL’s qualifications, and once governance approves the hand-off, Lemma should comply.
Current Personnel & Compensation
| Role |
Name |
Monthly Pay |
Notes |
| Grant Reviewer |
Joni |
$3500 |
Active |
| Grant Lead |
Mark |
$3500 |
Inactive (term ending with no pay this month} |
| Ventures Lead |
Jordan |
$3500 |
Active |
| Ops Associate |
Delisse |
$2200 |
Active |
| Contractor |
Margaux (Comms) |
~$500 |
Active |
| Elected Oversight Member |
Grace |
$2400–4300 |
Pay depends on hours worked |
| Financial Controller |
Matt |
$2400–4300 |
Pay depends on hours worked |
Note: Core staff are paid their full monthly rate regardless of hours worked. I have suggested to contributors that they report their true hours and proposed paying them pro rata for the time worked, rather than at the flat 40% FTE rate.
Next Step
I encourage the community to submit and pass a proposal explicitly authorizing the elected Oversight Member to supervise and execute the wind-down efficiently and transparently.
On-Chain Proposal — Recommended Key Terms
-
Payroll & Roster
- Empower Oversight to remove redundant or unnecessary personnel with discretion, and immediately.
- Retain Ops Associate and Comms Contractor through 31 Jul.
- Retain Oversight Member and Financial Controller until full close-out (pay will be adjusted to be commensurate w real FTE%).
-
Funds & Compliance
- Funds: transfer all balances from Grants, Strategy, and Ops DaoDao wallets to the Oversight DaoDao wallet within 5 business days of proposal passing.
- Spending authority: Oversight may pay grantees, vendors, contractors, and essential opex from the Oversight DaoDao wallet.
- Reporting: publish monthly financial statements for Jul – Dec 2025. The Financial Controller to produce FY 2024 financial report. All reports to be published in this forum.
- Residual funds: once all grants are closed, and all relevant fees (expenses) are paid, transfer total remaining balance from Oversight DaoDao wallet to AADAO’s 4-of-7 multisig: cosmos1jggracsvp6fkw0ktf544lpda6dwrrxggx9a20n
- Multisig signers of **9a20 must follow Oversight directives, e.g., return total balance of funds to the community pool.
Note:
Youssef Armani will not be contacted to sign any transactions. Mikey Lee is no longer the signer from Cosmostation.
- Contributor cooperation: all former and current contributors are expected to respond promptly and comply fully with Oversight requests.
-
Grant Management
- Elected Oversight Member assumes full supervision of all grants, with ICL providing review and support as needed (confirmed with @Mag)
-
Ventures
- Maintain and extend Lemma trustee arrangement through FY-2028.
- Direct Lemma to recognise ICL as the qualified party/entity to immediately assume venture lead’s “protocol support” duties.
5 Likes
Regarding the above, am going to have a call w AADAO contributors forthcoming Tuesday to see how much of the recommended plan can be achieved without an on chain proposal.
At minimum, we will need governance to direct:
-
shuttering of AADAO (the Dao was made through governance, and must be terminated via governance)
-
Lemma to transfer venture support services to ICL
3 Likes
AADAO Drawdown Plan
1. Current Alignment
All key stakeholders: AADAO contributors, AADAO Oversight, and Interchain Labs (ICL) are aligned.
A formal governance mandate for an immediate draw-down plan with a hard sunset date is not required at this time.
The following mutually agreed upon plan preserves organizational memory, redirects supervision to the appropriate parties, and positions the DAO for an orderly and definite “sunset”, without unnecessary governance overhead.
2. Grants
| Transferred to ICL (direct supervision) |
Supervised by AADAO Oversight (with ICL support) |
• Token Terminal
• Zellic
• Cosmos Hub Archive Node
• ATOM Community Activation (Istanbul) |
• Superbolt
• Pryzm
• Passage
• Hydro-related grants: Zephyrus, Margined Protocol, Immunefi, Votion |
3. Ventures
-
Trustee extension
- Extend Lemma Ltd’s trustee role from FY-2026 to FY-2028.
- Additional cost: US $12k (awaiting revised agreement).
-
Operational shift
- Jordan Andrews’ venture-support responsibilities will migrate to ICL.
4. Core-Team Reductions
| Name / Role |
End Date |
| Mark Denker, Grants Lead |
30 Jun |
| Jordan Andrews, Ventures Lead |
30 Jun |
| Joni (“Curious J”), Grant Reviewer |
31 Jul |
| “Margaux”, Contractor (Comms & Socials) |
31 Jul |
| Delisse Gamboa, Operations Associate |
15–31 Aug (tbd) |
The elected Oversight representative and the Financial Controller will remain in their roles until all unused funds have been returned to the Community Pool. I have also asked the Controller to prepare annual financial statements for fiscal years 2024 and 2025.
5. Financial Housekeeping
6. Administrative Housekeeping
- Workspace renewals
- Preserve records across Google Drive, Slack, and ClickUp.
- Slack renewal (two seats: Oversight + ICL) requested from @Better_Future
- Estimated cost: ~US $3k (through 2028)
7. Cosmos Hub Governance (to be proposed, and for the on-chain record)
- Terminate AADAO mandate, assent to wind down of all operations.
- Approve Lemma Ltd trustee extension through 2028.
- Authorize transfer of venture-support duties from AADAO to ICL.
7. Next Steps
| Timeline |
Action |
Owner |
| Immediate |
Finalize Lemma Ltd extension |
Core + Oversight |
| 15 Jul |
Draft & circulate governance proposal |
Community + Core + Oversight |
| 30 Jul |
Finalize workspace renewals & data-archive plan |
Core + Oversight |
| Ongoing |
Supervise active grants & venture support |
Oversight + ICL |
“Core” = AADAO contributors
cc: @qxnico @Mag @bpiv400 @CuriousJ
6 Likes
This is great! This is exactly what we need
2 Likes
Sounds great. Thank you Grace!
2 Likes
@Better_Future : I’ve resorted to prompting you on the forum bc my DMs via Signal, Telegram, and X are still unanswered. If your contact information has changed, please lmk asap.
There are 3 urgent matters requiring your immediate attention:
1. Slack Workspace Transfer:
Renew and transfer ownership of the AADAO Slack workspace to me and @0xMagmar. Critical historical information necessary for ongoing grant and venture oversight is currently inaccessible. We agreed last Dec on the importance of preserving data and comms to ensure responsible continuity.
2. 450,000 ATOM LP
Confirm your multisig public key and sign tx to initiate unwind of the 450,000 ATOM LP position on Astroport. These community funds must be returned to the Hub per CH prop 800.
3. AADAO Trust Governance (Enforcer Clarification)
The Trustee (Lemma) and I need clarity on the current Enforcer of the Guernsey Trust. Are you still the Enforcer? If not, who is it?
There appears to be misalignment bw the Internal Protocols and the Trust Deed regarding the definition of the Strategy Committee and its role as Enforcer.
Lemma, has indicated that no Enforcer is currently in place. We need the identity and status of the Enforcer to amend the Deed and novate venture agreements that were improperly executed.
cc: @CuriousJ @Carter_Lee_Woetzel @Mag
3 Likes
FYI
Updates from Oversight re details of AADAO wind down will be provided here
2 Likes
