This is quite interesting! I’m in the boat of not wanting to focus on setting up the DAO to receive funds because of 1) what you laid out above of how it would change the structure and ethos of the DAO and 2) it would complicate the regulatory and tax situation even more than it already is for every member of the DAO.
I have seen a few people question what happens to the DAO when the grant money runs out and say things like the DAO would no longer be able to function in that case. I actually disagree there. First, there are A TON of tokens in the ecosystem fund. And when the time eventually comes around and it runs out, we should hopefully have a full ecosystem built out by then that includes many different projects. What if at that point it’s a self-sustainable ecosystem without the need for more grants? Maybe I’m being short-sighted, but that’s what I envision someday. I would like to see the DAO trailblaze a path and build a world that does not currently exist, not follow in the steps of what others have already done.
Glad to see you (and hopefully others) come around to the idea that this is an opportunity unlike any other for the community to help create “something”.
There is a definite tension between letting things grow organically through an individual’s creativity/ideas and the need to create more structure - KPIs, reports, hierarchy, timecards/min wage, etc.
I think the latter could be solved through Working Groups, Squads, and/or Guilds and the former should be the default of the DAO at this early stage.
As you infer – do we want to go the way of a VC-backed entity or move directionally towards a DAO, even if progressively.
I believe that YugaLabs has the former covered – it’s on us to work on the latter.
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This is truly awesome Mantis!! Love the post, and I’m largely aligned with the shared sentiment here that this decision could open up ‘scary’ ideological questions around the purpose of the DAO.
At the same time, the motivation for drafting this was largely to get an answer to a question that’s been asked by many DAO members.
To be clear, this is not a request to set up the DAO to accept funds, only to fund a feasibility analysis.
Candidly I’m a bit torn on whether to push forward on this given the feedback.
I’m torn as well. While I don’t think the DAO should accept funds for reasons laid out above and do think it can succeed without doing so, it might still be a good idea to see what the process involves.
My main question is what if we look into it and don’t really get any clarity about it? Regulations around crypto, NFTs and DAOs are very limited as of now and it’s hard to figure out exactly how to best proceed.
Nothing is impossible but it does come down to “Is it worth the risk for the DAO?”
The balance sheet lies in the legal entity, which is a Foundation. In theory of course it is possible that the DAO could vote to convert APE into ETH - the Foundation entity could hold other assets than APE (again, in theory). However, there is a clear preference at this time for the direction of the DAO to be only granting out APE, therefore, I doubt it would hold up to Special Council review.
@Amplify had a workaround for this, which is to use the old original $OHM setup to allow ETH holders to buy APE at a discount (without the 825973% APY of course). If this were done in a siloed account that is set up specifically to participate in yield farming, this lets the Foundation get its hands on ETH without earning a profit.
Why I want to do this: If we have ETH, we can get into UniswapV3 APE-ETH pool, which is paying like 100% APR right now. That yield could be used to fund things rather than principal. It takes the DAO to a new level of financial sophistication using defi instead of legacy finance.
That yield gets rolled over immediately into projects to keep it from being classified as profit.
If we asked Cartan these questions all at once, giving the DAO a choice about where to go, and WHY it’s going there (just asking Cartan to set up accpeting profits with no direction automatically puts the DAO into more centralized territory), then that’s a much better ask for clarification.
I’m just going to do a proposal for the APE-ETH thing, though; that’s my way of asking. Just waiting weeks for an answer on something theoretical seems wildly inefficient to me.
I believe the general idea around this is great - more clarity is needed everywhere we can get it in the DAO. I’ve had a conversation with @zheerwagen about this as well. Though I’m not certain $100K will get us good clarity either way too, including for the points you mentioned. As I write this a thought came to mind…I’m thinking that perhaps a legal memo about all this may already exist within the records of the Foundation.
We got to this structure of only granting out APE funds not because someone woke up one day and decided that’s what the DAO will do; there must have been significant analysis already done by legal that lays out the risks for the DAO to participate in activities other than granting funds. Now that I really think about it, I wouldn’t doubt there’s a memo with risks and recommendations already prepared.
Is the AIP to ask to release any memos regarding legal recommendations for the DAO? Maybe. But even then, I doubt it could be released to the public for the good of the Foundation. Just food for thought as far more than $100,000 was spent initially on legal to set this DAO up for success.
Also, a few millions dollars in revenue is not going to move the needle on a $1.5B+ fund that at one point was at $10B. Maybe the focus in the near-term should be on funding ecosystem projects vs. returning revenue until such time that revenue becomes material to the DAO. At that point, we could comfortably throw millions into solving the problem. Just spitballing thoughts.
THIS is the question to ask Cartan, IMHO. Why doesn’t the community have this info? @0xSword also mentioned there are 20 page private reports printed up on every AIP in consideration, but voters never get to see them. Why not? These are the questions to ask Cartan.
Unfortunately that idea does not mitigate the risk to the DAO - the conversion to and/or acquisition of ETH is already a profit generating activity, regardless of future yield.
Don’t get me wrong though, I love the ideas, but this is the kind of push back I’d expect when considering the ultra conservative nature of our current structure. We don’t even have an internal team within ApeCoin DAO yet to serve as long-term planning committee or something similar. Building out our internal infrastructure is likely a better use of time since we have no need for funding given the treasury. Tackle this when we have the people and policies in place to best take advantage of potential revenues.
the conversion to and/or acquisition of ETH is already a profit generating activity, regardless of future yield.
By what measure? Are you defaulting to US law, and do we know that law applies here?
Also, if it is sold at a discount, isn’t that negative profit? Even if it’s not, the DAO can pay tax if it has to. I’m not against that if it gives the DAO more money to do its work.
Yes defaulting to US law because the entire structure is set-up offshore to prepare for a battle with the SEC and/or IRS, should it ever come down to it.
Yes defaulting to US law because the entire structure is set-up offshore to prepare for a battle with the SEC and/or IRS, should it ever come down to it.
If it’s offshore, why would this be a question?
And if you’re preparing for a battle with an entity by kowtowing to them pre-emptively, that seems backwards. This is the kind of fearful planning I want to avoid.
Ok, I have my answers. I know what I’ll be doing in the next few days. Everyone else, I hope you have clarity in your own visions. And I hope that vision doesn’t include fear of any sort. Are we here to create a new paradigm or no?
Because the US regulators don’t truly care if you’re offshore, as long as they can put together a case with enough factors that they think they can win against you. All one can do is put up as many mitigating risk factors as best as possible should there be a “battle”, and structuring offshore is one piece of the puzzle. I wouldn’t characterize the steps taken here as kowtowing, but I do see why you’d think that.
In any case, there’s still a non-zero chance regulators try to tie ApeCoin to Yuga, the Founders of which are American so making this entire thing domiciled in the US. Yes that’d be total BS, but that’s the reality we live in. It’s why there’s specific messaging to separate Yuga all the time from the actions of the DAO.
We are trying to create a new paradigm, but clearly there are still boundaries. For example, evidenced by the DAO not taking on revenues, not being able to perform distributions back to token holders for passive income, etc. Unfortunately we can’t simply throw caution to the wind and say this is web3. Having a better understanding of the fears the Special Council, management team, and other partners have, will help to produce more successful AIPs.
Also, if it is sold at a discount, isn’t that negative profit? Even if it’s not, the DAO can pay tax if it has to. I’m not against that if it gives the DAO more money to do its work.
Sorry I realize I missed this one. The cost basis is $0 for the DAO for APE (got it for free at the time of issuance). So any transaction, no matter the price, is already in profit.
but it does come down to “Is it worth the risk for the DAO?”