AIP-358: Ape Assembly Restructuring For Independence

[SmartAPE]

PROPOSAL NAME

Ape Assembly Restructuring For Independence

PROPOSAL CATEGORY

Process

ABSTRACT

The Reflection Period in AIP-239 states (below) that: “Any point after three months from passing, any community member may also propose changes to the Working Group structure through our AIP process.”

The aim of this proposal is to re-structure the Ape Assembly which will allow for a more streamlined and robust DAO structure, community-wide engagement in its leadership votes, and a path for the DAO to grow via financial and fiscal initiatives via sustainable revenue streams.

It will also rename the “Metaverse” nomenclature to “Business Development” (BizDev), while retaining the original Metaverse Working Group charter mandate in AIP-245.

The graphic below illustrates the proposed structure changes.

BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM

The Ape Assembly was formed in AIP-239 as an initiative within the Governance Working Group. Since its formation, the Ape Assembly has struggled with low levels of participation, due in part by the already low participation in the general DAO community itself. Further, the dependency on the Governance Working Group for its operation and budget also results in a conflicting environment that creates a needless and restrictive reliance.

This restructuring of the Ape Assembly reduces friction, complexity, and additional bureaucracy. It also ensures that the three leadership roles are voted on by the entire DAO, thus ensuring a larger participation turnout than that which has thus far been seen in the Ape Assembly engagement.

Making the Ape Assembly its own autonomous group allows it to create growth and prosperity initiatives for the DAO via the engagement of third-parties which would be responsible for the same initiatives that the previous Ape Assembly was tasked with - but without arduous and complex processes.

With this re-structuring, the Ape Assembly will be created as a separate business development entity that allows it to undertake various activities to spur the growth and prosperity of the DAO thus bringing financial and other fiscal benefits to the DAO through a revenue stream.

AIP-239 already laid the groundwork for various structures and processes which the restructured Ape Assembly will follow as indicated below.

This process further decentralizes the DAO operations through the formation of a separate DAO or LLC entity specifically for the Ape Assembly initiative.

As a separate entity, the Ape Assembly, through RFPs, will hire third-party entities who will be tasked with performing the tasks previously outlined by AIP-239. These include the mandates and charters of the following groups:

Treasury: Working Group Charter – Treasury

The Treasury Working Group’s Mandate is to: “Explore legal and governance structures that would enable the DAO to sustain operations and Initiatives in perpetuity. The Treasury Working Group would also oversee a portion of the ApeCoin DAO’s assets, exploring ways to deploy them thoughtfully on-chain while promoting a non-custodial environment.”

Metaverse: Working Group Charter – Metaverse

The Metaverse Working Group’s Mandate is to: “Drive culture forward into the metaverse by actively supporting metaverse-related efforts within the ApeCoin DAO.”

Marketing and Communications: Working Group Charter - Marketing & Communications

The Marketing and Communications Working Group’s Mandate is to: “Create a consistent and compelling brand strategy and identity for the ApeCoin DAO, develop and implement comprehensive marketing and communications strategies, and establish a strong presence through effective global communication efforts in order to onboard more users into the DAO.”

Another significant benefit to the DAO is that with this proposal any future grant proposals (AIP) which fall within the mandate/charter of the three now defunct working groups and which require funding will be submitted via the newly created Ape Assembly Proposal (AAP) process, thus isolating them from the lengthy, arduous and unpredictable DAO voting process. This will allow the Ape Assembly to engage, hire and fund various third-parties with a view to receiving a share of any revenue stream as per the AAP.

The Ape Assembly, in addition to its budget grant, will be able to receive revenue which can then be converted into $APE, a portion of which can then be staked to the benefit of the DAO community.

STEPS TO IMPLEMENT & TIMELINE

1. Deprecate and remove the AIP-329 requirement to create three additional working groups (Marketing & Communications, Metaverse, Treasury) as these are now obsolete and the tasks and goals will be undertaken by the Ape Assembly in cooperation with third-parties hired via Request For Proposals (RFP) created by the Ape Assembly Team.

2. Dissolve and archive the pre-existing Ape Assembly activation processes currently active on Discourse and Discord. These should now be sections accessible to all members of the community in line with other similar sections of these services.

3. Create an Ape Assembly Proposal (AAP) process/section in Discourse similar to the pre-existing AIP processes. This would also require the explanation of the differences between the standard AIP and the new AAP processes.

If it is determined to be a better option, then the difference between an AIP (no funding request) and an AAP (funding request) can be determined by the request for funding within the AIP idea.

Ergo, if no Ecosytem Fund Allocation required, then an AIP is created for DAO voting. If funding is required, then an AAP is created and sent over to the Ape Assembly Team for review and approval.

4. Create a separate Ape Assembly [business development] group within the DAO leadership structure and which exists as its own DAO or LLC entity separate from the Governance Working Group and the Ape Foundation.

5. Create a multisig wallet for access by the Ape Assembly Team members.

6. Transfer the balance (if any) of previously allocated Ape Assembly budget to the new Ape Assembly multi-sig wallet.

7. Create DAO elections for three members of the Ape Assembly who would serve within the same terms and election guidelines as the Governance Working Group.

8. Applicants will be invited to nominate themselves as members of the Ape Assembly. In the nomination announcement within the “Ape Assembly Elections” category on Discourse, a link to a form will be provided for applicants to submit the same information requested from applicants during the Special Council nominations and elections processes outlined in AIP-137.

The Ape Assembly multi-sig wallet must be deployed before the next Ape Assembly elections.

The election of all three Ape Assembly Team members begins following the same cadence as the Special Council.

The Ape Assembly will be ratified and empowered with their budget following the Ape Assembly elections.

Within 30 days of the Ape Assembly Team onboarding, the Ape Assembly begins operations.

OVERALL COST

This AIP is requesting $6M USD in $APE using the price of APE when the grant is issued in order to fund the operations of the Ape Assembly Team for a period of twelve (12) months. This budget is subject to automatic renewal and allocation every 12 months via a request to the Ape Foundation by the Ape Assembly.

The Ape Assembly Team will invoice the Ape Foundation as needed against this budget until the Ape Assembly multi-sig wallet is deployed with three signers being the elected members of the Ape Assembly Team. The Ape Assembly Team will then take custody of the budget.

BUDGET NOTES

• The Ape Assembly Team will set its own monthly operating expenses budget. This is required to engage/hire third-parties as per mandate of the three working group charters. For example, we currently pay WebSlingers $75K per month.

• Ape Assembly Team members (three) will each be compensated $9K USD per month in $APE using the price of $APE when the grant is issued. These funds will be allocated from the Ape Assembly budget.

• The Ape Assembly Team will, as-needed to fund projects, request funds from its budget for the purposes of business development (bizdev). These funds will be paid in $APE using the price of $APE on the day it is paid.

[SmartAPE]

UPDATES GO HERE

1. Increased monthly budget ask from $37K to $77K due to planned third-party hires required for tasks related to the three working group charters. e.g. we currently pay WebSlingers $75K per month as per their bid to the RFP which the DAO published.

2. Increased bizdev budget from $5K to $10K to make it yearly instead of every 6 months. This provides more flexibility in project approvals and spending. For example, we recently gave Machi over $11M for AIP-304. Once the AA spends its yearly budget, it can either request additional funds via an AIP or wait until the following year. If funding is depleted before year end, AA can also opt to continue signing up projects, while letting the AAP authors know that funding won’t happen until the next budget is allocated.

[SmartAPE]

To be clear, one of the great things about this AIP restructuring is that it allows us to fund smaller grants via the AA without subjecting the authors to a lengthy voting process via the standard AIP process. This has been discussed many times in the past, and again today in ApeComms. I didn’t get to speak due to snafus with X even though Lost kept sending me up. So, I didn’t get to mention that this AIP already exists specifically to help with that sort of thing. I did mention it in today’s AA voice chat #9.

Also, with its own yearly budget - replenished via the Ape Foundation instead of a hit or miss voting (see what happened with the GwG budget which came very close to failing a few days ago) - as a separate entity the AA will be more instrumental in growing the DAO and sparking engagement.

We need a streamlined process as well as a decentralized system to grow the DAO to prosperity. My AIP probably doesn’t have all the answers, but I believe that this is a great start.

Also, this idea is a lot more than just “replacing it with a new Working Group with 3 Stewards. Its just not called a WG, or Stewards”. It completely eliminates all the complexities and processes surrounding the creation of those working groups because the AA will then be able to just hire third-parties via RFPs similar to how we have Webslinger working for/with the Ape Foundation at a higher level.

We absolutely cannot hope to use working groups to create a new structure that we’re going to somehow run on our own. We’re simply not setup for that and so we’re just going to fail over and over. To wit: all the efforts at getting the original Ape Assembly up and running - in any form.

This idea allows us to hire vetted professional teams/companies to do what we need as per the three working group mandates. They’re already setup to do all that. So, we don’t need to re-invent the wheel.

For example:

Treasury: Working Group Charter - Treasury

The Treasury Working Group’s Mandate is to: “Explore legal and governance structures that would enable the DAO to sustain operations and Initiatives in perpetuity. The Treasury Working Group would also oversee a portion of the ApeCoin DAO’s assets, exploring ways to deploy them thoughtfully on-chain while promoting a non-custodial environment.”

We don’t need a specific internal working group.

We can hire a professional investment management person/corp to do this.

So, the AA team would scope out and talk to worthy candidates, then explain to them the process for submitting an RFC using our template. Then, instead of going the voting route, the AA team picks the most worthy candidate, discuss with the Ape Foundation etc and go from there. No voting. No wasting time. No drama.

Metaverse: Working Group Charter - Metaverse

The Metaverse Working Group’s Mandate is to: “Drive culture forward into the metaverse by actively supporting metaverse-related efforts within the ApeCoin DAO.”

We don’t need a specific internal working group.

The AA team can scope out worthy candidates and projects, fund marketing outreach to spread the word etc. and create a streamlined AAP process for submissions etc.

Those AAP submissions will of course be visible on Discourse so that the community can engage as they see fit. Then, the AA team gets to make decisions on which projects and teams it wants to fund and which, like no-money AIPs, benefit the DAO.

For example, a game project can request funding via an AAP, then offer to pay the AA a percentage of it’s revenue in exchange for the grant to build their project. The AA share of the revenue can then be staked or invested (as per the treasury initiative above) without it just sitting in the AA multisig.

Marketing and Communications: Working Group Charter - Marketing & Communications

The Marketing and Communications Working Group’s Mandate is to: “Create a consistent and compelling brand strategy and identity for the ApeCoin DAO, develop and implement comprehensive marketing and communications strategies, and establish a strong presence through effective global communication efforts in order to onboard more users into the DAO.”

We don’t need a specific internal working group.

We can hire a professional marketing person/corp to do this. We’re basically hiring a marketing firm to help us build and promote our ApeCoin DAO and brand.

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None of this is complicated because it’s all standard procedure for running a for-profit entity such as a corporation. Unlike the Ape Foundation, the AA is a separate entity which can be setup to receive revenue which it then stakes, invests etc.

Similarly, the GwG can be setup to do all of the above. However, due to its legacy tracks to the Ape Foundation, we can’t just re-brand it or even dissolve it. So, we have to build something else and which has a clear mandate of growth and prosperity - which primarily involves revenue generation.

I know some are going to balk at the $5M a year operating budget. Sure, it could be less, but the issue here is that we are completely removing funding via the DAO from the equation. Any and all future funding for any grant coming from the Ecosystem Fund, would come via the Ape Assembly.

The DAO just isn’t setup to do what it was originally intended to be: a grant awarding body. And this is what is causing a lot of the road blocks and disappointing voting results due to some people not wanting to just see the treasury depleted…even as $APE rapidly heads to zero. By giving the AA a fixed yearly budget - directly from the Ape Foundation via a grant - we create a separate body that is built to run efficiently and to generate revenue that gets recycled as-needed.

Imagine if we spent $5M a year to fund projects that generate some revenue. That’s still a lot better than what we have now whereby money just goes out without anything coming in. The icing on the cake? The AA can not only fund projects, but it can go out and BUY profitable projects and put them under our umbrella. The result? Now we have [tangible] assets.

Also, things like all this noise about funding for ApeComms - our first line of promotion - gets resolved because, as part of its marketing mandate, the AA can basically fund the ApeComms team and their sole purpose would be to do specifically what they’re doing now, but bigger, better, more efficient - and global because they would have the funding to do it. None of that voting drama which just creates uncertainty and stress.

[buuvei]

@SmartAPE

Making the Ape Assembly its own autonomous group

Key sentence right here

[smirksterboy]

It’s too confusing and difficult to comprehend, although I’ve read it all 2 times. Can it be even simpler for new participants?

[Olakojodan]

I’m totally lost, I read this stuff twice, bro and I can’t understand any single thing

[SmartAPE]

@smirksterboy @Olakojodan

Stuff like this, by nature, tends to be complex. It’s why not everybody is cut out to be a corporate officer, analyst, mathematician etc. Collating data so that everyone gets it tends to be very challenging.

I see now why @Amplify wrote AIP-239 the way that he did - by hiding entire sections (which most people probably didn’t expand to read) to make it more readable. Unfortunately, unless you open ALL those tabs you won’t see 99% of the Ape Assembly mandate and planning. And search doesn’t open the tabs - which are created by hiding content.

Let me see if I can break it down further to reduce some of the complexity and confusion. Do feel free to ask any specific question about something that is unclear.

REQUIRED READING

AIP-239: Working Group Guidelines & The Governance Working Group Charter

AIP-242: Working Group Charter - Treasury

AIP-245: Working Group Charter - Metaverse

AIP-246: Working Group Charter - Marketing & Communications

Announcing the $APE Assembly

Learning about the $Ape Assembly… and how to join!

What should an Ape Assembly proposal be called?

THE TL:DR

[SmartAPE]

For those interested, our efficient secretary @Vulkan has a table that shows all the DAO funding to date.

"I have this table where I’ve been tracking the total grant requests of all approved AIPs vs. rejected AIPs. Please note some of these are estimations as some AIPs requested ApeCoin and I wasn’t sure what the exact $ amount of the request was at the time.

I also left off AIP-22: Staking Pool Allocation Reloaded - Ecosystem Fund Allocation as it is over a 3-year period and the exact amount is unclear."

Airtable | Everyone's app platform

For easy access, I took screen images to give a quick idea of the DAO funding to date.

The list gives an outline of the types of grants that get voted for, compared to those that don’t.

It’s rather hilarious to me that I had a hard time identifying grants that benefit the DAO to any tangible degree. Aside from the fact that once the money is out, that’s basically the end of it, and there’s literally zero accountability or follow-up to see what happened to the money.

And looking at that list, some of these very same people voted down a small $63K ask to fund something like ApeComms which is the primary outreach voice and portal for the community. Activities like this can be handled directly by the Ape Assembly through its budget without having to engage in the time-wasting and arduous AIP processes and resulting voting drama.

This - again - is why people believe that DAOs simply don’t work. Especially when you automatically onboard a massive number of people via token holding.

My AIP - if it passes - will solve several problems all at once. And the companion AIP to streamline the AIP process is a part of that.

[ItayuanaNunes]

I thought this information was excellent, I had already seen and talked to a friend of mine who is also here at the DAO, about these issues of DAO expenses with some AIP’S that in my point of view don’t add much to the DAO, they are huge expenses and as @SmartAPE said, once the capital has been withdrawn, it gets very complicated.

[SmartAPE]

To me - as someone who owns businesses, manages teams around the world etc. - the issues with DAO can be attributed to these simple issues:

1. The voting system. It sux. It’s inequitable. It’s inefficient. It’s lopsided.
2. The AIP process. It’s slow. It’s inefficient. It’s arduous.
3. The DAO leadership structure. It needs to be better streamlined in terms of voting, funding, tasking

Primarily, the underlying issue is that most people don’t want it to be a grants body - though that was supposedly (wink-wink) the whole reason for its existence. That said, if voters - especially influential whales like MachiBigBrother - don’t want it to be a grants body, but rather a corporate entity that brings in revenue while taking steps to boost the price of the token, that ultimately determines the direction of the DAO, the type of AIPs that pass etc. In the end, builders simply aren’t going to bother to come here. This is why I am advocating for a separate DAO (in this AIP) which serves that purpose as that not only seeks to generate revenue, but it also helps to preserve the treasury. It’s a win-win for both sides of the equation. You’re not likely to generate revenue by not spending money. And the amount of money spent is directly related to the revenue generating opportunities. Spend peanuts, and you get back grains.

In yesterday’s ApeComms Spaces (I invite everyone to listen to it) I asked Machi - point blank - what direction he wanted to see the DAO go in. And right there and then, he flat-out repeated what he’s always stated and which is the general consensus with those who are primarily focused on the value of the token. For as much aggro as he gets, he has been pretty consistent in this regard. He wants to make money. He wants the DAO to make money. He believes the DAO is run inefficiently, spends too much money for a startup (which it is btw) etc. He doesn’t want it to be a grants body.

When I first came to this DAO some months ago, I started making a lot of noise about stuff like this. You can read my posts and see that I have been patently consistent. I kept on saying that if people are pretending that the DAO is totally a grants body, that it’s the same Web3 nonsense whereby everyone yells about transparency even as they run away from anything resembling KYC, accountability etc. - all the things that lead to prosperity and growth. Nobody believes that this DAO is going to survive, let alone prosper, if people aren’t on the same page as to what the DAO is and what direction it should take.

I mean, even as a startup, it’s directly headed for a catastrophic failure because nobody wants to buck the status quo. And most don’t want to speak up and speak out because they fear reprisals, being kicked out of the cool kids club etc. And it’s that silent majority who turn out the vote - even though the voting turnout is still small when compared to the number of token holders who are in de facto members of the DAO.

Right now, the GwG and the SC are working behind the scenes towards additional decentralization by forming off-shore entities etc. Literally none of that - none of it - is going to yield any tangle results for how the DAO operates because at the end of the day, no matter how many entities there are, no matter how many teams there are, unless the DAO splinters into a grants body on one side and a for-profit body on another, it’s going to die - even as the [heavily shorted] token continues its slide to zero.

Below is what I said in a July 8th post. I invite you all to read that whole thread.

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"For a community like this, gaming is the only way forward to bring utility to the coin.

The issue I see is that other leading tokens give grants to gamedevs to build on their platform, use their tokens etc. Even so, those grants are minimal, and aren’t attracting mainstream devs. Aside from the Web3 risks associated with doing a game. Also, micro grants aren’t ever going to yield meaningful games because good games take a lot of time and cost millions to make. If the game sucks, the token will just continue to slide.

Look at the Yuga games. Do you think that they would ever be successful in Web2? Why would they be successful in Web3? The smaller Web3 audience is why. I mean, right now the entry price to play HV-MTL is about $1K. Think about that. How has that helped the coin value? And that’s a game made for cheap. Otherside isn’t a game - yet. If their target is correct, it won’t be for several more years. At least.

*I have spent months reading this forum before joining. I have some ideas. However, coming from Web2 and being the n00b around here, I don’t want to ruffle any feathers by voicing them."

***I too am baffled tbh. Over the weekend, I wrote a script that analyzed the AIPs. It was surprising to me that the failure rate was so high. Even for really good proposals. Some great ones like AIP-209, barely passed. The only conclusion that I came up with, besides the obvious, is that some bag holders would rather not spend $Ape because they’re concerned that those tokens will ofc get dumped in order to raise the funds to complete the project.

$Ape value will continue to depress because the token currently has very little utility; and even Yuga’s best efforts aren’t doing much to move the needle.

I don’t understand this - at all.***

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I joined the DAO back on June 29th. On that date, $APE was $2.23. On July 8th it was $1.99. Today it’s hovering around $1.1

Despite the on-going macro conditions during which various companies - including game companies - have seen major layoffs, yesterday it was Yuga’s turn. As awful as it is to see people be out of work, the Yuga story wouldn’t have been anything special due it being par for the course of business - were it not for specific statements made by Daniel Alegre. Decrypt has a good story about this. Do read it. Daniel said:

“Alongside these wins, there have been a few rocky rollouts, particularly in our gaming execution, because we learned along the way that we weren’t optimized to build and manage everything in-house, nor should we be.”

She said it best:

“…apparently hoping that people ignorant to the past year of disaster across the NFT industry might be willing to attribute Yuga Labs’ struggles to macroeconomic forces and not the implosion of the crypto - and particularly NFT - world.”

I will say this again. Every game that Yuga put out has thus far been a disappointing failure. This isn’t news; the data is public. When I wrote here in our DAO that as a games dev the writing was on the wall and that the Yuga games simply weren’t moving the needle and that by any Web2 metric they were dismal failures, I was met with much criticism because in Web3 most people have their heads in the clouds and only want to hear feel good news.

Here in the DAO, we’re divided as to what direction we need to go in. And so, the DAO is like a deer caught in headlights. We can’t fund meaningful initiatives because we can’t spend money. We can’t spend money because most would rather not spend money.

And then, right on cue, in yesterday’s ApeComms session while discussing these issues, Machi - again - indicated that perhaps, like the global industry, the DAO needed to downsize the team, cut costs etc. He specifically said to cut the SC from 5 to maybe 3. Here’s the thing. The DAO startup currently has 12 core team members who are being paid $162,165 per month, $1.945,980 per year. That’s aside from the $75K per month being paid to WebSlingers. Yet, amid that, AIP-239 decided to add another 9 people (via 3 new working groups) to the team at a cost of probably $8K per month - each. As I’ve said before, I have no problem with the team salaries and that it’s not their fault. The DAO was setup this way and they’re just - again - going with the status quo. An AIP to revise those salaries was summarily shot down (you can read my synopsis) and a new one, AIP-337, is currently in admin review.

All of the above amounts to one single thesis: money going out and no money coming in.

And even though the DAO isn’t setup to generate let alone receive revenue, the community has different ideas on how to engage the public in promoting the DAO etc. Some believe that IRL events are the way (announcer: “no, they’re not”) to do that and to “go back to the BAYC roots”. These people are forgetting the fact that if we’re currently facing failure, how does going back to the roots change the outcome? IRL events - like marketing, promos etc - have their purpose - but they are not and never have been the litmus test that drives adoption of anything. At all. Ever. If you have 1000 people interested in your product, what makes you think holding a convention is going to attract even those 1000 people?

The talk of having our own blockchain, ApeChain, also came up - again. As did the drive to have products use the $APE token. Again, people are forgetting that none of these things will change the inevitable outcome that is failure. What’s going to set apart ApeChain from the myriad of chains already out there and on which dApps are built? What’s going to make ours so special? Even with all the benefits of going to an L2, how does that improve our current situation? Is having our own chain going to somehow attract builders to the chain, let alone the token? lol. No.

There is a reason that over 90% of the Web3 dApps are games. You absolutely cannot ignore this metric. You can go on your favorite search engine and find hundreds of posts, articles and research studies about this very metric. So, why is it a surprise that, just like in Web2, games are the fastest growing metric in Web3? It’s just math. Why is it a surprise that, like most, Yuga decided to pivot to making games?

Back in Jun 14, Jonah (who was also on yesterday’s ApeComms session) came here asking for $20M to create a games publisher in the DAO. While I would have voted for it with some caveats that I would want to see in the draft, he abandoned the idea and it was subsequently withdrawn. Then yesterday he [flippantly] said that he went out and got $250K from another DAO.

Following that, on Jul 22, another team proposed a similar $20M idea. After much drama, that one too was seemingly abandoned.

Amid all this, the general community at large has, like Yuga, decided to place all their collective eggs in the Otherside “metaverse” basket. Even with every single indication and trend alluding to its impending failure. In fact, here is what I stated back on Aug 30th.

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"What makes you think that Otherside will succeed where others have ultimately failed thus far?

You know that it’s not about the tech, right? UnrealEngine /w integrated SpatialOS based tech from Improbable isn’t going to somehow create a Metaverse dynamic - in any form.

Every single game - every single one - that used that tech has failed. Even the studio that Improbable bought, made and released a game with. There currently isn’t a single game in operation or dev that uses that tech.

The main defining factor of Otherside is going to be the experience - not the tech (which has its own on-going problems). And to compete in that arena, it has to be an experience that either meets or surpasses the likes of Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite and even Core (by MantiCore) . And in addition to that, it has to have a low barrier of entry, which, going by HVY:MTL and Wreck League, is probably not what they’re going to do.

Either way, none of these environments are the Metaverse. And never will be. There’s a reason that Meta has thus far lost over $40 Billion in chasing that pipedream."

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Then last month, out of nowhere, Yuga abandoned the Improbable tech (M2) which it used as the backend for Otherside. Then invested in a new tech made by Hadean.

Who saw that coming? I did. And I said so. I have been doing this for so long that nothing surprises me any more.

When I came here, I made my goals clear and transparent. I wanted to help the DAO community grow beyond its bubble by making games.

And so it was that on Aug 2nd, against my better judgement, knowing the inevitable outcome, I put up a $5M multi-year game AIP which I was absolutely confident would have made a difference. And once again, the people here who know about DAO funding more than I do, said it would never pass due to the amount and the DAO’s resistance towards funding games - of any kind. So, I reduced it to $2M, and finally to a simple marketing + promo $500K spend. The result? The community still killed it. Even if Machi had voted (he abstained) for it, the AIP would still have failed. Look at those margins.

And now some people, including Machi, are saying that us builders should keep trying even if we failed before. Why would anyone want to do that? How would the outcome change? It’s not like investments whereby you can go through 100 investors who say no, but end up with the 1 that says yes. Here, it doesn’t work that way because you’re literally pitching to the same people. You rarely find startups going back to the same investors and getting a yes after being rejected. It rarely happens. And even when it does, the end result is usually the same - unless there’s a material change in the deck that made the investor change their mind. Here, we’re not pitching to publishers, distributors, investors who are usually less than a handful of people making the decisions. We’re pitching to a polarizing community of people who - literally - have very little or zero knowledge which would govern a sound and plausible decision - regardless of the outcome. I personally would welcome a “no” from a wise man, than a “yes” from an ignorant person. And I have been through the gauntlet of both of those sides.

Machi, one of the DAO’s largest wallets and most influential DAO members, also feels that games are too high risk. Yes - they are. But that hasn’t stopped people from making them. Each time you put money into something and expect a financial return, you’re taking a risk. Even that older game which I am still going to release, is a high risk regardless of its previous successes that made me buy it. But regardless of that fact, it’s still a social environment and a game that simply doesn’t exist in Web3 at this point - and most likely never will given how expensive and risky such games are to make.

If we don’t embrace games and gaming, the DAO isn’t going to prosper. It’s that simple. Yuga can’t save it - and we certainly can’t save Yuga. And so, no, we’re not going to pick up any slack left by Yuga’s shortcomings, let alone fill any void. And just like all gaming risks, there’s no indication that Otherside will be a success where Yuga has thus far failed. Assuming that Yuga actually finishes it.

And lest we forget, this AIP aside, the Metaverse Working Group isn’t likely to be up and running until some point in Q1/24. Assuming it actually gets a budget passed. And then what?

ps. The DAO gave $480K to AIP-209 and thus far nobody actually cares about what happened to it.

“The Ape Accelerator (Ape Launchpad) is designed to help strengthen the ApeCoin and BAYC ecosystem by incubating and facilitating projects that contribute to, and utilize, ApeCoin and BAYC IP ecosystem growth. Projects looking to launch through the Ape Accelerator will require $APE token to submit a proposal, and holders of $APE and BAYC Ecosystem NFTs will be able to access the launchpad to invest in these projects.”

[SmartAPE]

There is now also an AIP idea to enable DAO wide voting for the working groups; thus removing that responsibility from the AA mandate.

Also, note that the three working group teams comprise of 5 people, not 9 as I had previously stated.

[gutsytramp]

What you have done is simply amazing. A huge job that cost many hours of labor. The scale of the problems that are unknown to new users is impressive, since for this it is necessary to dive so deeply that not everyone will dare to do it

[SmartAPE]

@gutsytramp Thanks for the support.

As a software dev, I lean heavily into data, numbers and research. To the detriment of subtlety, sometimes it all gets convoluted and so, any attempt at a TL;DR tends to fail spectacularly. So, I just lay it all out in the hopes that people will be able to understand it all. I mean, nobody likes to read the fine print, right? lol

Speaking of which, here is another new AIP thread that’s even more detailed and impactful.

[Lost.Admin]

Hi @SmartAPE,

Your topic would be moving to the AIP Draft phase in less than 24 hours. Are you content with the feedback received or do you wish to extend community discussion for another 7 days?

If we do not hear from you within 48 hours after your topic closes, your topic will be moved straight to the AIP Draft process.

We look forward to hearing from you.

-@Facilitators

[SmartAPE]

Thanks Lost. No need to extend. Lets head to draft. ty

[Lost.Admin]

Hi @SmartAPE,

Thank you for your ideas [and the ApeCoin DAO community for the insightful discussions]. A moderator will reach out to the author to finalize the AIP Draft using the appropriate template. In accordance with DAO-approved guidelines, if the author doesn’t respond within 30 days, the proposal will be automatically transferred to the Withdrawn category, and the author can re-submit the idea. Once the AIP is Drafted and meets all DAO-approved guidelines, it will be published on Snapshot for the official live voting phase at: Snapshot.

Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments. @SmartAPE please see your messages for the next steps.

-@Facilitators

[Chris.Admin]

Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,

@SmartAPE has completed editing their AIP Idea to be their AIP Draft.

Edits have been made to this Topic, by the author or by the author’s request.

You can click the Pencil icon at the top of the post to see these edits.

Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.

Kind Regards,

-@Facilitators

[Chris.Admin]

Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,

We have no further questions for @SmartAPE. This AIP is now under Administrative Review.

Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.

Kind Regards,

-@Facilitators