[resovled]Stop all funding to ICF

Hub Proposals
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The ICF annual report states(Annual Report 2023, and Beyond):

“The purpose of the Interchain Foundation
As stated in our mission (original), the ICF has a commitment to decentralized technology development, focused on the interchain and the Interchain Stack, in continuation and growth of the initial Cosmos vision — This is the core of our public focus, and obligations. We ratified this commitment and focus in 2023 — with a focus on the broader interchain, and the Interchain Stack, while the Cosmos Hub pursued a path to sovereignty to drive its strategic direction and product vision through its governance, supporting treasury, and DAOs.”

This means that for ICF, the Hub is no different from other Cosmos chains. The vision of ICF is to promote the Interchain Stack rather than the Cosmos Hub. Therefore, the Hub should not, at least not only the Hub, provide funding to the ICF.

I don’t know where the funding for ICF comes from, nor do I know whether the hub is continuing to provide funding for ICF. I just propose:

  1. If the hub is providing financial support to the ICF, that will stop immediately.
  2. Recover any possible funds that have already been paid to ICF.
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The ICF isn’t “funded” by anyone now. They received a genesis allocation of Atom.

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We will intentionally oversimplify things here to give you a basic understanding of the economic relationship between the Hub, the Interchain Foundation (ICF), and the interchain. We won’t dive into the full story as it involves many steps and politics, including some Cosmos drama, of course! By focusing on the economic standpoint, here is the sequence of events:

ICO Overview

  • The Cosmos ICO took place on April 6, 2017, and was conducted in 26 minutes.
  • The ICO successfully raised approximately $17.3 million.
  • This was primarily raised in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
  • The price of ATOM tokens during the ICO was approximately $0.10 to $0.15 per token, depending on the market rate of BTC and ETH at that time.

Token Allocation

  • The initial total supply of ATOM tokens was set at 236 million.
  • ICO Participants: 75% of the ATOM tokens were allocated to the ICO participants.
  • All In Bits, Inc.: 10% was allocated to All In Bits, Inc., the company behind Tendermint.
  • Interchain Foundation (ICF): 10% of the tokens were allocated to the Interchain Foundation, a Swiss non-profit organization that supports the development of Cosmos.
  • Seed Contributors: 5% of the tokens were reserved for seed contributors who helped with the early development of Cosmos.

Since the mainnet launch, another undisclosed $9 million round led by Paradigm was conducted in 2019 (source: CoinDesk).

You can find a detailed breakdown of the distribution by looking at the genesis file: mainnet/accounts at master · cosmos/mainnet · GitHub

Present Ownership Estimates

Fast forward to today, the multisig account of AIB (ex-Tendermint Inc.) has migrated most of its remaining funds into this wallet: cosmos15hmqrc245kryaehxlch7scl9d9znxa58qkpjet, which holds roughly 9 million ATOMs, meaning that AiB holds 2.26% of the current circulating supply (source for weighting: https://atomscan.com/accounts).

On the other side of the equation, the ICF multisigs received their genesis allocation in these two wallets: cosmos1unc788q8md2jymsns24eyhua58palg5kc7cstv (receiving 6 million ATOMs) & cosmos1z8mzakma7vnaajysmtkwt4wgjqr2m84tzvyfkz (receiving 14 million ATOMs).

Today these two wallets have experienced multiple transactions, and most of the remainder seems to have migrated mostly into: cosmos1z6czaavlk6kjd48rpf58kqqw9ssad2uaxnazgl & cosmos1sufkm72dw7ua9crpfhhp0dqpyuggtlhdse98e7. Today these ICF wallets hold 3.34% of the ATOM supply, split between 1.32% & 2.02% respectively in the addresses mentioned above.

Conclusion

The community’s constant concern around the foundations is quite intriguing. These entities are still among the top wallets listed on-chain, but the numbers clearly show that their influence in the ATOM supply has only diminished over time, as expected since the launch in 2019. The proceeds from the ICO and the follow-up private round raising $9 million have likely been consumed long ago. Therefore, both entities operate by selling their holdings either on the open market or via OTC deals (over-the-counter). Nevertheless, it is essential to remember that today both these entities hold a combined 5.6% of the supply compared to their initial 20% distribution. To our knowledge, this aligns with economic standards for companies of this scale. Despite major criticism from certain community members and allegations of misuse of funds, we still have no evidence of misconduct so far. The numbers we showed align with expectations, supporting the thesis that if any misconduct is to be determined, the size is likely minimal. We should not underestimate transparency by any means, but we should not condemn without due process either, nor should we amplify the numbers to support political claims. To compensate, we wanted to provide this estimated breakdown, hoping it would help rational individuals access sourced information and begin digging deeper if they see fit.

Thanks for reading,
Govmos.
pro-delegators-sign

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To add one more point: The ICF is a non-profit foundation. They are not supposed engage in speculation or “growth” activities, their main focus always has been open-source development – i.e., public goods.

Could not have put it better.

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Isn’t this indirectly acknowledging that the alleged misconduct likely exists? Either way, thank you for taking the time to provide the estimated breakdown.

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So All in Bits Inc and ICF have raised close to 47 million ATOM tokens in the ICO (20% of 236 million) and their activity add no value to ATOM?!? Combined they both make about 6 million ATOM per year from rewards (assuming 10% inflation and reward rate of about 13%) which if you use $5 average price (it is usually higher) is income of about $30 million per year. Jae (All in Bits) is pocketing about $15 million per year and ICF about $15 million.

And Cosmos Hub token holders see nothing acruing value to them out of this massive cash flow. OK, I guess Informal is getting a couple of million per year for about 10 devs to develop ICS which may go on for another year but then that’s it.

Between Jae and ICF, these duders pocketing about $28 million per year on top of their original stack that is valued at $235 million (at $5) now.

Wild stuff. Damn.

You would think these clowns would make a better effort at keeping ATOM around $10. Talk about gross incompetence.

lmao

If anyone is getting screwed majorly out of this, it is Ethan Buchman who along with Informal is doing all the work while Jae is cashing in the 10% yield ($15 mill) year after year.

Aya ya yai…

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It is undeniable that ICF’s mission: “focused on the interchain and the Interchain Stack” will benefit the Hub, but it will also benefit all COSMOS chains, but the cost is only paid by the Hub. I just think it’s unfair.

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After frequently browsing community posts, I gradually realized the fact that Hub is no different from other COSMOS chains. It is not a special chain. COSMOS chains can run normally without HUB. Hub does not lead ICF. Instead, Hub relies on ICF and COSMOS SDK and other technologies. This is different from my previous understanding, and I think most people who buy ATOM outside the community are not aware of this. Everyone may think that ATOM represents the entire COSMOS, ATOM = COSMOS, but this is not the case. ATOM is no different from TIA/STRIDE/OSMOSIS, etc.

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In addition, I often see some posts saying that the price of ATOM is not important. ATOM is used to protect and govern the Hub, and it should not have a price. I don’t agree with this. If ATOM has no price, assuming it is 0 yuan, how many people will continue to hold ATOM? The cheaper ATOM is, the fewer people will want to hold it, and the Hub will become less secure. When it returns to zero, no one will want to hold ATOM. Does the inflation rate of 10% or 100% make a difference? No difference. It’s just a garbage coin, and no one cares about it.

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These quotes demonstrate profound misunderstanding of the value distribution and inflation mechanisms. We don’t blame you for this, you are far from being the only persons in the community mixing prices and value because of a misleading perception of the inflation economics… We have raised this topic quite often in this forum and alerted that the community requires a general education on these economic mechanisms to tackle a true reform of inflation driven by facts and math instead of beliefs and misunderstandings.

We plan to request a grant from the @ATOMAcceleratorDAO to perform this public-good education task. Hoping that in the future, posts like these won’t happen again.

Anyway we are drifting away from the initial topic which we believe should be closed by the author as the main issues raised have been addressed. @FatTiger

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With all due respect, especially within the context of how operations claim to have been panned out over time, i.e. individuals/teams coming into the eco to simply run off with the original idea to build their own, separate empire(s), the inventor of Tendermint should well be within his right to earn what he does, if not arguably more.

We should not consider these original leaders as “clowns” either, let us pay our due respect, especially when considering how insider committee centralization is allegedly leading the Hub to where we are now, without discounting the good that have also come, along the way.

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Ponzi is also well within his right to earn what he does given all the hard work and sweat he does to attract investors. We should pay respect to him for being a hard worker and hustler, beating the pavement and getting in front of people and raising money for his original investors.

Guys that get paid tens of millions of dollars per year don’t need you as a lawyer, ok.

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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.

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Bro please.
It only looks good to you bc you don’t know what to look for.

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Please remain respectful… your behavior is unacceptable for an elected community representative.

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Pardon?
My behavior does not become unacceptable simply on account of you labeling it as such.

It’s not self-evident to me what you find so objectionable? Do you care to explain?

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It’s really simple—you don’t get to address us as “bro” or accuse us of not knowing what to look for when you’ve clearly misunderstood our point. If you’d paid closer attention to the post, you’d see that all we did was refer readers to the latest report published by the ICF, as it’s relevant to this topic. That’s it. There’s no hidden agenda, no manipulation.

On the other hand, your actions when it comes to anything related to the ICF seem politically biased, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed by many participants on this forum. Now that you hold an elected position representing the community interests within the AADAO, you need to uphold a higher standard of conduct here. You carry responsibilities now, and the casual approach you may have taken in the past doesn’t fit with your new role.

We want to make it clear that we’re not attacking you personally—this is about your current position and the role you play within this community. Since your election, your contributions have been of highest standard, and we’ve genuinely enjoyed reading them. We are asking you, with the utmost respect, to return to that level and elevate your behavior accordingly.

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I don’t get to “address” you?
:skull_and_crossbones::joy:

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Let’s not bicker about the silly stuff. I do think it’s a bit much applying a moratorium on colloquialisms like “bro” tho.
I don’t know where you’re from, but it may be a cultural difference perhaps. That said. I appreciate you for reading my reports.
I have a captive audience of one.

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@Cosmos_Nanny

On- & Off-Topic Correction: Data inaccuracy; You have 2 captive audience members, at the very least. It took 4 years, your unwaivering dedication to equity & my desire to inform you of this erroneous figure in an effort to, umm… support accuracy of data, yeah, to finally get signed up to post in the forum. I guess some of us are late bloomers, but I sincerely TY for your dedication & honestly in all things, that’s refreshing.