I don’t see how this is helpful compared to my comment that it’s unacceptable to introduce speculative bias into the compensation of the SC. We’re going to hard disagree here. I’ll think your idea is amazing once the DAO turns into a for-profit organization and the role of the SC changes to business development (which it is not.)
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It doesn’t matter where the DAO is located because they aren’t outside the reach of the US govt. Surely you know this?
The Special Council members being US citizens or residing in countries within the jurisdiction of the US govt. presents a conundrum in and of itself because token holdings still need to be reported - and taxed.
The main issue here is that being paid in $APE and then being asked to vest that, is in fact an investment because the token, by the very nature of its initial ICO, is an investment vehicle. Just like shares.
And being asked to “hold” part of your pay in a vested vehicle is no different from being paid in vested shares which are also investment vehicles.
Why would they have to “believe in $APE” when in fact they’re not mandated to do anything that improves the performance? I mean, it’s about value. I am pretty sure that if I were being paid $20K per month, then asked to accept some it as vested vehicle, that means I am incentivized to improve the value of the token in order for it to have value. The SC isn’t mandated to do that because it’s a non-prof. I mean, why didn’t the original founders think of that back when $APE was trading at $14? They didn’t believe in it back then?
For all intent and purposs, it’s an investment token. It was the whole purpose of the ICO. Calling it something else doesn’t change this material fact.
$450M was raised in the Strategic Sale on 22 March 2022 with an average price of $0.18
An Ape Foundation subcommittee will also serve as ApeCoin DAO’s “board,” which will oversee certain proposals. The initial board consists of five high-profile crypto investors: Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian; Amy Wu, who leads the crypto exchange FTX’s venture arm; Maaria Bajwa, of Sound Ventures; Animoca Brands’ Yat Siu; and Dean Steinbeck of Horizen Labs. Each board member gets a six-month term, and the ApeCoin website promises DAO members will be able to vote on future members.
Floating somewhere in the middle of all this is a Cayman Islands-based consulting company called Cartan Group, which is being paid $150,000 per month for a six-month contract; all five of the DAO’s active AIPs, or “Ape Improvement Proposals,” were posted by Brian Tang, the company’s co-founder.
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Glad to see this back.
People seem to forget we are now solely elevating community members, they have no special qualifications, educations or backgrounds that make them perfect for the role.
Treasury is now down from a multi-billion dollar fund to barely $500m once fully diluted in three years; so for us to continue to give quarter of a million dollars ($250,000) to each member is pretty OTT imo and short sighted.
Other points to note - SC members can (and most will without doubt) use the title “ex-special council member” for the rest of their lives, and good luck to them, but should this also not be costed in - the doors that the role opens for them now and in the future?
Last point and I’ll stop before it seems like a rant (and no I won’t talk on the $ape price subject and SC), the role of Special Council should be seen as a vocation. Those who are applying should feel a certain “calling” imho, so lower grants will encourage this more and have zero impact on those who apply for the SC role in the future. (Especially as we are now creating specialised working groups where we can pay larger grants to people with real proven experience and knowledge in their respective fields, if they join, and if we decided to etc etc.)
GL with this. Although Turkeys and Christmas spring to mind - just saying. 
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This is a flawed opinion; also a carefully constructed narrative being pushed by certain Special Council members, and I’ll explain why:
Any half decent investor will do their research/due diligence before parting with any money; as 47% of $ape goes to the DAO then naturally one would look at those who control its direction. When they look at these people below, truth be told, they are simply not being filled with confidence, and this ofc rightly reflects in the price of $ape at present.
Tbh I could give many more examples and reasons but there’s really no point - we can agree to disagree respectfully for sure. 
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For sure. And I’d actually agree that someone investing in $APE would be right to consider who is on the SC and how they may influence the direction of the DAO.
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Hey SmartAPE
Thanks for your reply. Thought provoking. My points were conversation starters rather than a definitive opinion. I am treating your feedback in the same way and so a couple of further thoughts:
- Totally agree the DAO is a not for profit and grants organisation and isn’t setup to improve the value of the token. As I understand it and admittedly my understanding is vague the special council is not the DAO it oversees the Foundation. The Foundation’s goal is to steward the growth and development of the APE ecosystem in a fair and inclusive way. Growth of the ecosystem should translate to improved utility and potentially but not necessarily value
- Why? Is that US employment law?
- I am not a tax expert so your point is interesting. I would have thought this wasn’t automatic rather a jurisdictional decision at the level of whether or not it is or isn’t an investment after that it would become a personal tax issue
- I would argue they should be running for the council if they weren’t willing to take similar risks that DAO members accept for their participation and efforts to grow the ecosystem
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Hi -
- The Special Council is part of the Ape Foundation which itself is the DAO. If you scroll up top you will see images that show this heirarchy.
- Nothing to do with employment law. It’s do with the fact that tying their salary to the performance of the token implies that their actions and activities are designed to affect the token price.
- Investments and salaries are always taxed. The token, which is already classed as an investment, would still be an investment if the SC salary were paid (as they currently are) based on the performance of the token. The point that I was making there is that even though some are pretending that the token isn’t a security (and thus an investment) offering it as a vested performance based salary incentive just solidifies that it was in fact offered as an investment to the SC.
- That’s a personal decision that each has to make. But my guess is that if $20K per month were paid out in 20K $APE, there would be different conversations around that very notion because at some point they’d end up with $5K per month instead of $20K. As it stands, $20K per month remains as-is regardless of the $APE price.
Instead of just USD equivalent, some or all of the payment should be in $APE. That way there is incentive for them to make the DAO more valuable and drive price up
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This topic was automatically closed after 7 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,
The AIP Draft submitted is currently incomplete and feedback has been provided to the author.
Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.
Thank you,
Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,
@Moonlyght has completed editing their AIP Idea to be their AIP Draft.
Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.
Kind Regards,
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How we doing with this?
We need to get it up to vote before the next SC elections.
Also, considering the exact changes that were asked for by SC have been made I can really see no reason for them to drag their feet.
Let’s just get this up to vote already.
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I’ve asked @Lost.Admin to speed up the process as much as he can, hopefully we’ll be able to get to vote before then so that the community can vote on this matter.
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They are currently running about 31 days avg to bring up AIPs to vote.
There are currently 14 AIPs in admin review, with no indication as to when they will actually go up for vote.
So, with barely 4 voting cycles left in Oct, and with AIP-138 indicating that Nov-Dec is the cycle one time-line for voting, I am not sure that AIP-337 will be up for vote before the Nov election cycle.
Also @Moonlyght, I think we need an AIP that provides certainty as to the timeline for an AIP to go from drafts to admin review to vote. I will probably write up that one because right now there’s no transparency or timeline for when AIPs go through the process - and so, we just keep guessing as to when they actually leave admin review and go up for vote.
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Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,
We have no further questions for @Moonlyght. This AIP is now under Administrative Review.
Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.
Kind Regards,
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This proposal is live for Snapshot vote at Snapshot. The voting period closes next Wednesday at 9PM EST.
The AIP implementation is administered by the Ape Foundation. Implementation may be immaterially or materially altered to optimize for security, usability, to protect APE holders, and otherwise to effect the intent of the AIP. Any material deviations from an AIP, as initially approved, will be disclosed to the APE holder community.
I don’t know what the council does besides put up AIPs to vote. And the AIPs lately are mostly terrible. Can they show the $200k+ per month in value they bring?
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The best thing is democracy, let’s participate and use the power to vote for each decision made by each member here, each one has a way of seeing the situation, with the vote we exercise our thinking.
Strongly disagree. There are dozens, if not hundreds of DAOs in the ether. One of the only ways to evaluate a DAO is how well it governs itself.
If the governance process or qualifications of elected officials are not up to par, how can you even begin to take the DAO seriously? As an investor or project looking to participate, I would just join a better managed DAO.
This directly effects the native currency of the DAO. If the DAO is just a joke plutocracy, then the value of a vote is $0 and so is the token.
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