$APE Holding Minimum for Grant Requests

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$APE Holding Minimum for Grant Requests

PROPOSAL DESCRIPTION:

The influx of grant requests in ApeCoin DAO is creating significant downward price pressure and political stress for major delegates and holders in ApeCoin DAO. This proposal is proposing a minimum requirement of 500k ApeCoin held by any proposer who aims to make a grant request in ApeCoin DAO of more than 50K ApeCoin.

I believe this will limit the amount of grift grant requests, and will reserve significant grant requests for deeply aligned and invested community members within the DAO.

BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM:

Preservation of $APE price/value and deeper alignment within the community.

DEFINITIONS:

N/A

OVERALL COST:

No Cost

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The intentions are great but this will actually downgrade the Apecoin DAO even more. Take note that the top 2 most popular voters; i.e. Machi and Horizen Labs had tons of $ape, they got in> proposed AIP> voted for themselves, voted against their competitors> had personal agendas > and then slowly dumped $ape without much attention as soon as their work was done.

The DAO need people who dont have much $ape coz they will actually do work onboarding more people, the bad actors came in coz they saw how bad the DAO has been doing where people with titles have no accountability and asking them about updates and progress or say in short questions is frowned upon.
People with small holdings arent grifting but people with large bags of $ape are.

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I agree this would be damaging, especially with the excessive amount of 500k $APE as a minimum. Almost no one can afford to, or at least should, hold that much of a highly volatile asset. A lot of good people with great ideas will be unable to submit AIPs that could push the DAO forward.

That’s why we vote. The voters decide so we can give people opportunity to have a voice. 1 APE = 1 APE. I think this would get pushed into reconstruction if attempted to put up for vote because it directly contradicts the 1 APE = 1 APE foundational principle. 1 APE != 500,000 $APE.

Edit: Also as a basic test, how much $APE do you hold? Do you have 500,000?

This also doesn’t prevent people from buying, then dumping $APE after their AIP passes and fails. We saw this in the recent SC elections where one candidate had a massive bag during elections to vote for themselves, and then suddenly post elections that position became a tiny fraction of what it once was. Just adds more volatility into an already volatile asset. Ponzinomics will not save the price of $APE. Eliminating the community from proposing potentially great ideas will not save the price of $APE.

5 Likes
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Agree with the points made already.

Requiring an individual to amass $300-$500k of a single asset in order to qualify for a $50k grant flies in the face of what the ApeCoin DAO stands for.

If the DAO believes an idea is bad, we have processes in place for that idea to be voted down.

1 Like
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I’m getting strong gatekeeping vibes on this one. Especially after you just got an insane 750k Ape proposal passed for a DEX fork. No crazy greenfield development - just a dex with new tokenomics. I can live with the outcome because at the end of the day the DAO voted on it. Who am I to be outraged.

But now you’re proposing people hold an insane amount of ape coin, almost as much as you asked, just to write proposals?

I’d like to echo @chimperton - do you hold as much? (without what the foundation gave you for the proposal) If not, are you willing to lock a significant portion of the grant? You know, for “Preservation of $APE price/value and deeper alignment within the community.”.

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It’s a grants DAO, tho. Designed to, literally, give money away. So, what has that got to do with the value/price of the token?

When the DAO runs out of money, then there’s nothing more to give. Which is why, over two years later, the new direction is in proposals finding a way to generate revenue for the DAO in order to preserve and to grow the treasury.

The solution isn’t to gate it - especially not in the manner that you have suggested - but rather to ensure that proposals do in fact bring value to the ecosystem which in turn will affect the performance of the token. And that decision lies with responsible voters. And of course, that, in and of itself, is a challenge when we have whale wallets which tend to vote contrary to the wellbeing of the DAO.

The token has no utility. That’s the issue that needs to be resolved because preserving the treasury is immaterial if a deflationary asset continues to depreciate in value either through cash outs or on-going market conditions.

If anyone is holding > $500K in $ape, then that person or group is probably a hodler, investor, delegate etc. In fact, we’ve seen people go stack up $ape, then either vote for theirs or friends proposal, then immediately dump it thereafter.

2 Likes
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I think there are alternatives to this proposal which can have a similar desired effect. Below are some ideas based on what other leading DAOs are already doing.

Also, I think we need to think how the DAO wide elected Stewards can play an important role in this process.

Function of Stewards
Suggest a new model of compensation for Stewards that will have a part of compensation in USDT and part in APE that is vested over 1 year, but the voting weight is immediately given via Hedgey Finance, see info Hedgey Vesting.

This will enable Stewards to have sufficient APE voting power to be meet the threshold to be a AIP off-chain proposer (in Model A). Please note some Stewards already have this voting power, but this will mean all Stewards can propose.

Potential New Structure - Model A:

Criteria AIP - Ops / Temp Check Proposals Executable Proposals
Type of proposal Offchain Onchain
Location Snapshot TBC https://www.tally.xyz/gov/apecoin
Function Changes to process or working groups, Temp Checks Distribution of Funds
Minimum threshold to propose $100,000 APE $1,000,000 APE
Quorum ≥ 10m $APE, 50% Approval for Grants funding, 66% for Constitutional changes ≥ 15m $APE*, 50% Approval (Votes ‘For’ + Abstain count towards quorum)
Voting period TBC 6 days TBC 7 days
Subject to time-lock? No Yes, 3 day time lock

Who can propose?
Ops proposals can be put forward by any Delegate or individual with at least 100,000 $APE.

Ops Proposals that have a budget?
The Ops proposals can also include funding requests. If they include funding requests and they pass and reach quorum of 1%, they are then moved over to be voted on via Tally as an Executable proposal. The Foundation Administrator will be added as the author if the original author does not have 1,000,000 APE to submit it themselves in the system.

Ops that are Changing DAO fundamentals
Any Ops proposal that is changing the constitution or working group fundamentals will need 1.5% Quorum and 66% vote in favour.

Temperature Checks
Temperature check: This is a preliminary vote that gauges the community’s interest in a proposal before it moves on to the next stage. This is specifically for proposals that will be requiring funding from the DAO and are not for non budget request Off Chain proposals of the Foundation and/or Working Groups. If such proposals have the support of a delegation with over 1,000,00 APE they can be submitted directly via Executable Proposals.

Executable Proposals can be put forward by: any Delegate or individual with at least 1,000,000 $APE; or Off Chain proposals that passed and reached quorum will be submitted by the Foundation.

Tally and Delegating
Please note that Delegating is a requirement in the tally platform. Therefore it would be expected that the amount delegated would significantly increase.

Quorum: In order for a vote to pass, a certain percentage of APE tokens (total supply, Not circulating supply) must vote. The current quorum requirements are:

Type of proposal Quorum Abstain included
Constitutional 1.5% N
Ops - Budget 1% N
Temperature Check 1% N
Executable 1.5% Y
  • AIP proposals, if passed, do not automatically execute any on-chain actions.
  • Executable proposals, if passed, will execute the specified on-chain actions after the time-lock period

Welcome to hear your thoughts on this @alexmccurry

After some discussions with others some questions and answers.

Q1. Will this stop funding for people without funds to build?
A1. No as they will have time to reach out to delegations in advance to get support. They can also reach out to one of the Stewards who will have the necessary APE to put up a proposal.
Also they don’t need the minimum threshold to put up an idea in the forum (here).

Q2. Why would people ask for a grant if they already have enough money to buy $APE?
a) You don’t need the APE, but you do need to convince a delegation, larger holder or a Steward to back your idea going to snapshot. If you can’t convince one of these to support, how likely is your AIP idea to pass?
b) Having funds already doesn’t stop someone asking for funds. The key point is what are they going to deliver that will make the DAO stronger.

Q3. Does this only support the rich?
A3. No, as adding a post in the forum, including an AIP idea would still only need 1 APE. However, to get to bring to vote will require you get buy in. It would actually help people with less APE realise to take the time in advance to gather support before they go to vote.

Q4. Won’t people just buy the APE and dump it after the vote?
A4. Buying the 100,000 APE only gets your idea to vote, no guarantee it will pass. Also there are many avenues for support to get your idea to the temp check phase. I believe it will encourage people to reach certain thresholds of APE holdings or pool their funds together with delegations.

Q5. Should the APE not have to be staked for X amount of time?
A5. This could be a consideration. I need to check how technically it is possible to require someone has staked for X period of time. Also challenges if people are staking on various platforms.

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So, let me see if I get this straight. Your solution - to a problem not created by stewards - is to use their earnings to solve a problem they had no hand in? Is that it?

Also, if you have this well-articulated idea. So…

  1. Why did you wait until now to bury it in a proposal that’s probably not likely to go to vote, let alone succeed at vote?
  2. Why didn’t you just write it up as an idea so that it can be discussed on its own merits?

In times of economic turmoil, businesses tend to scale back, not only non-essential spending but also staff cuts - but they don’t tend to halt activities that generate income. Obviously we can’t do staff cuts without an AIP. To the extent that my AIP-466: Proposal To Close Non-Essential Working Groups is designed to do just that.

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Ok, I will move it to a new topic of discussion. I don’t believe it is ready for an AIP idea yet.

It is being added, post pending now @SmartAPE

Added

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I don’t see how this solution doesn’t:

  1. Give even more power to whales and large delegations. They can now decide directly what does or doesn’t go to vote through their sheer willingness to back that author or not.

  2. Incentivize quid-pro-quo situations where if an AIP author wants to get their AIP to vote, they’ll have to cater to the whims of the whales and delegations to get the backing.

The proposed solutions here are basically taking the absolute worst elements of politics, e.g. money controlling them, and manifesting that into a system purposefully. What problem are we actually trying to solve here?

For this statement…

“The influx of grant requests in ApeCoin DAO is creating significant downward price pressure and political stress for major delegates and holders in ApeCoin DAO.”

It’s just objectively false. Grant requests do not create significant downward price pressure. Grants passing, and the funds being distributed, might do so. If you want to stop significant downward price pressure, end Yuga asset NFT staking programs. Get Yuga and their founders to stop taking the massive vests. Trying to create barriers to prevent people from putting AIPs to vote isn’t going to make price go up.

1 Like
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I had commented on @bigbull’s proposal before I read the current thread, so now I have some more context on where it came from. I generally agree with what everyone has said. I agree with @SmartAPE that the key is to administer basic HRM protocols to ensure that proposals have accountability and actually bring value to the DAO. Right now, there’s no method for clawing back funds granted to a project that fails to achieve its goals.

The utility of ApeCoin is to vote. If voting is controlled by whales, the coin’s primary utility is then in allowing people to make proposals on the forum. Remove that, and there’s no utility. I also agree with @Evil and @chimperton that this proposal wouldn’t stop individuals from passing proposals for more funding, and then dumping their bags as soon as they collected,

I also share @VonFrontin’s concern that this subverts the idea of decentralized voting. If the DAO doesn’t support an idea, it can be voted down. However, if it’s the whales who control the vote, they already control which proposals succeed. This would just continue the centralization so that only the whales could even make proposals.

2 Likes
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100% agree with this. It’s further altering power dynamics in a way that prevents the average ecosystem participant from being able to stand on their own and have a voice. It’s not worth my time to dig for this, but I’m pretty sure it was Gordon Goner who happily tweeted about how someone with just 1 $APE and a dream could get big things passed in the DAO. I don’t agree with a lot of choices Yuga or their founders have made over time, but this core idea is a good one. We shouldn’t be building more barriers and roadblocks.

You might just stop the idea from coming through that could save this thing.

3 Likes
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Thanks. The good thing that I find is that an ideas thread can go on for as long as the author seeks to renew or abandon it. Your idea would fall into that category because during the course of discussions, you may determine that it’s not worth moving to draft - which subsequently ends it after the time period.

As you obviously put quite a bit of work into it, I just thought that regardless of merit, it’s worth its own discussion because, who knows, you may end up with a variation that works as you originally envisioned it.

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Which is why, for nigh on a year now, I have advocated for voting reform. And I took up that fight again with my AIP-471: Special Council To Propose Voting System Reform and AIP-474: Delegated ApeCoin Community Voting Wallet proposals.

I believe that voting reform is the answer to all our on-going challenges. The problem is whether or not the community is able to band together to pass voting reform even though whales will obviously vote to kill any such proposal.

1 Like
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^this. It’s basically another transfer of [whale] voting power.

There will be blood in the [internet] streets if such a proposal ever shows up, let alone goes to vote. :rofl:

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Yeah, but bags down bad, tho. :rofl:

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This relates to your question or concerns:

1 Like
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Hi @alexmccurry ,

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-@Facilitators

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Hi @alexmccurry ,

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.

  • Once the AIP Draft is confirmed by the author and meets all DAO-approved guidelines, it will receive an AIP ID number and move forward for Draft Analysis Review.
  • @alexmccurry please see your messages for the next steps.

Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments. In accordance with DAO-approved guidelines, if the author does not respond within 30 days, the proposal will be automatically transferred to the Withdrawn category, and the author can re-submit the idea.

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