Sorry, but no - that’s literally not how that works. An entity with no revenue stream will fail regardless of how much money is allocated towards financial sustainability. Which is precisely where we are now - as some of us had aptly predicted that we would be.
Yes, and? We’re not them. And we’ve done none of those things.
Right. But yet still you thought a $5M grant to a crap F1 racing team was a totally good idea. To wit:
“At least with Formula One there are some benefits for holders.”
Financial sustainability via investments creates long term ROI. This is how all major endowment funds work.
Harvard University , with a $49.495 billion endowment as of FY2023, is the wealthiest university in the world.
Harvard's Endowment | Financial Administration.
An ecosystem fund is not the same thing as a fund of funds or direct VC investment, but still has the potential for returns back to the DAO.
We had a group that wanted to move part of the Treasury into other tokens, but the proposal never got sent to vote. In retrospect this would have been prudent financial management.
Regarding the F1, which I do enjoy personally, I was not a strong supporter of it tbh, given it was not clear the exact benefits back to ApeCoin. Also starting with the term “at least” is a weak endorsement at best for that AIP.
Also reducing staking is unreasonable to people who bought NFTs and APE knowing they can stake with them. If launch partners and Yuga reduced their allocation by the same percentage it would be reasonable. (specifically for their ape which is locked and they don’t get staking rewards, or do they get rewards on the locked part not received yet?) Which they can’t legally without all parties agreeing and probably don’t want to.
As an investor, entrepreneur and advanced math guy, I know this. However, as I said before, allocating funds isn’t likely to yield profitable results.
You said this above:
“If there was not massive allocation for financial sustainability the DAO would have no long term future.”
That’s the justification for the $100M BB fund - among others. You are saying that an allocation of funding somehow guarantees “long term future”. It doesn’t. It just doesn’t. And you can’t know that unless and until that funding has been deployed and the P&L metrics come in. That’s how risk management works. The DAO took a massive risk with $100M carved out into a separate fund of which it stands to lose 100% of that fund given the current Web3 trends in all sectors - all of which are in decline. It’s why I have always maintained that ApeChain doing the same crap that’s been done elsewhere isn’t going to work because those who were there first are already there - and most are losing. You can go to Carta right now and see the Web3 investment trends for Web3. They’re all down - bad. Every single one.
You talk about major endowment funds. They all invest. The DAO doesn’t - and hasn’t. Ever.
Back when I first came here in June 2023 and was writing tomes and missives about how giving money away was not a sustainable business model, very few paid attention. And it wasn’t long after that we got this Nov 8, 2023 “clarification” Clarification - AIP returning value back to the ApeCoin DAO saying, “oh yeah, we can totally receive revenue”. But what did the DAO continue to do? Give out money - mostly to grifts and projects destined to fail; even as some of us who are experienced investors and creators, looked on, unable to do anything about it.
We all know this.
Yeah well if that was put to vote and passed there would be less funding for grifts.
It’s great that you at least acknowledge this. But the fact remains that it was an inappropriate backdoor deal and the DAO didn’t have all the facts required to make an informed decision about such a costly proposal. Anyone put up a proposal for even $500K and they would have to make all kinds of disclosures, justifications etc. And yet still, mere months after that F1 fiasco, we ended up with a $100M fund that didn’t even have a quarter of the data and metrics that even a $500K proposal would be required to disclose. And all were perfectly OK with that because we tend to have different standards around here. Which is how we ended up with a depleted treasury.
I agree with this. But the fact remains there was no guarantee of performance nor any warranties made. And so, this can be changed at any moment in time - and without notice. And it was a proposal that made it happen, and a proposal can just as well reverse it. But you already knew that.
They have no incentive to do that.
Actually I envisaged us giving out 1-10m USD into various Funds which are pegged in USD and have teams and/or funds with track records for 8-20% Annual ROI.
Total funds deployed like this could be in the 20-50m USD range.
These investment funds could be tech and AI related, but not such a narrow niche in web3.
It would have given a decent return and de-risked from a currency POV.
If we do improve our situation, I still think we should consider this approach.
Lets see.
I agree that those are good ideas. Maybe write up the proposal idea and see where it goes?
I would fully support this, although the DAO has a long term history of voting down AIPs that attempt to sell $APE. People are often too focused on a single action instead of the long-term benefits of that action, in my opinion.
(This is also why I supported Yat’s fund even though some were worried about the sell pressure of $APE. My goal was long-term sustainability, and I believe those sorts of actions help that. Diversification good.)
For example, here’s an idea I had last night that I thought would be so legally complex to implement I wasn’t going to share. But I will just as a “food for thought” position.
What if staking $APE was actually contributing to a large investment fund. Your position of $APE would actually reflect a percentage of ownership for said investment fund.
The $APE deposited would be converted into whatever investment vehicle was needed for the overall fund’s success. When you withdrew, the investment fund could sell and you’d earn or lose depending on the fund’s performance, and you’d be paid in $APE.
So while this would absolutely create $APE sell pressure, when people wanted to take profits or eat losses from the fund, it would create buy pressure. The DAO could simply earn a percent of the fund’s performance in return for facilitating it.
So TLDR - stealing @yatsiu’s AIP idea but massively increasing the scale, and thus the potential impact. How that wouldn’t make $APE a security, I have zero idea. 
But at least it would give staking a tangible purpose, and it would naturally radically diversify the DAO’s position. All good things.
Question, how would converting $APE into other investments appear to outsiders? For me, and I am not smart so take this with a grain of salt, it would look like we don’t believe in our own token enough to hold it, and instead put that money into more traditional finance.
Can you give me examples of how you envision $APE to invested in other tokens?
I’m not bigbull, but any semi-serious investor would understand the benefits of diversification. Especially when you’re trying to run what is effectively an organization on the funds you have.
It’s not about optics. It’s about sustainability and gains. Holding onto a rapidly depreciating asset such as a token - of any kind - isn’t conducive to long-term sustainability let alone financial gains. That’s why you diversify.
Oh, I think optics matter a great deal. I’m not against diversifying, but I think it would give off bad vibes to some folks.
It’s not like diversifying guarantees a return. that investment can also go to zero. there are no safegaurds.
I think you’ve been doing a very admirable job of making this happen! Great work!
This is very unfortunate. I disagree that this would appear like a lack of belief in $APE. I think a financial management team would have taken at least 10% of the $1 billion that was previously held in a highly volatile altcoin and invested in other tokens. I think this would have demonstrated not a lack of faith in $APE, but a commitment to the long-term sustainability of the organization.
I would have put 2.5% in BTC, 2.5% in ETH, 2.5% in USDC, and 2.5% in 5-year treasuries with a 5% yield. I would have argued for more than 2.5% in each. I wouldn’t have put anything in blue chip coins like AAVE, LINK, SOL, AVAX, BNB or others because even those are subject to highly volatile drawdowns. In the end, it’s not surprising that the value of the token dropped precipitously. This would have been fine if the DAO started paying everyone a proportionally smaller amount, but they didn’t. $100k takes a lot more $APE out of the treasury now than it did a year ago.
I am pretty sure that when a token is down bad and the treasury is low on funds - as it is now - sensible and serious people would care more about number go up than about optics.
btw, I was responding to this part: “it would look like we don’t believe in our own token enough to hold it, and instead put that money into more traditional finance.”
Nor does holding a depreciating asset all the way to zero. You know, like our token. And now also our treasury.
Agreed!
Have you see the Q1/24 financials? I can’t wait to see Q2 and Q3.