An overview of operational expenses of LunarDAO and proposed compensation to all of the contributors of the development of the DAO, that includes all the external contributors and six anon founders (called Stewards). The compensation payment is to be discussed by the entire community and voted on by the LunarDAO Squad.
Here is the complete proposal: https://github.com/lunardao/lip/blob/main/lip-0002.md
At the present Ethereum valuation, the ask stands at $28,556, which represents a mere 27% compensation of the stewards’ meritorious labor, in addition to their actual expenditures and the resources they had to procure, among other costs.
In my view, the remuneration of 28.5k to be distributed among the stewards is hardly an exorbitant demand. Drawing on my experience as a web developer and freelancer, I estimate that these skills alone command a value of several thousand dollars, and the LunarDAO team has contributed far more in terms of web development. On top of that, maintaining the wiki is a substantial undertaking, as is the hosting, setup, and maintenance of the forum and social media accounts.
Having previously co-managed a community of considerable size, I know firsthand that it requires an immense investment of time, energy, and resources. The LunarDAO team has demonstrated unwavering commitment and activity in the community for several months, and this should not be underestimated or taken for granted.
From my vantage point, the LunarDAO’s marketing campaign has been truly exceptional, characterized by consistency, diversity, branding, and quality. The team has also hosted impressive Twitter Spaces events, and overall, they have performed remarkably well.
In my estimation, if the LunarDAO maintains this level of output quality, the proposed payout of 28.5k should pose no issue. However, moving forward, certain aspects can be refined and clarified, while maintaining the existing standards and ensuring that the DAO continues to be successful in the future. Therefore, I urge the team to persist in their present course.
Based on the LunarDAO’s impressive foundations, I believe that the next goal should be to scale up. In my opinion, this could be accomplished by increasing media coverage and further networking, among other strategies. The LunarDAO’s key strengths include aesthetics, marketing, and networking, and we should strive to develop these further.
Lastly, to ensure that my views are impartial, I ask whether receipts can be provided for any expenses beyond the initial loan.
Hey @Yvesedwards and welcome to the forum
Thank you for the feedback. The initial loan was taken in ETH around price $1220 and is meant to be returned in ETH.
The costs from it were covered over period of a few months and 0.9064 remained till today. The Stewards multisig (not the DAO multisig) has all the transactions through the time GnosisSafeProxy | Address 0xab501a8eb58c9780eb04d683feb504fce391a2dd | Etherscan
Here is an overview of the initial loan expences.
| ITEM | TX | COST ETH |
|---|---|---|
| Web 3 dev | 0xb305d450d2bb207581e252a0b2eab7a0e720f80860cf335e0c437dc8fd7728f1 | 2.5 |
| Video ½ | 0x518c8ef89fe0f6ed97598c11c8a1dd82e9866b25d3fef847f623ef6e08c42996 | 0.37 |
| UI dev | 0x5b6bca2a74e77a096e731d9e5346904b35b051a1c68f595e28ca5983a91fbf6c | 1.53 |
| Twitter promo | 0xce08dbda08f6f70fff511d7ceeb844365127a1446a5d0c0a2efea11143fbe76e | 0.08 |
| Twitter promo | 0x7bc9a4eae815e443c29eed67e23956d48ea23ae33e1072234232dfceed63a23b | 0.12221 |
| Twitter promo | 0x6958d387cc4deec95d5bad7f42cc96ccebeb2f948746fd7a4ed3823266fccdeb | 0.03 |
| Services (hosting, domain, ENS etc) | 0x86992c19b681ab6915baf4babf65c04e9e07ab6cb17c3bba4cf9b7447caa5515 | 0.6 |
| Twitter promo | 0x81bf48af4e910a468325dbd700920c028513e8b2f16a542b294a32bb10a0bfa2 | 0.15184 |
| Video 2/2 | 0x12dd9c48d70060582804832234f9cceb7062534b53d3e107671698bc6862e56c | 0.255 |
| Promo | 0x6171cb72648dba0779799040752b02a8a50c5d0076723cd9b514567770fa3894 | 0.1282 |
| Summoning DAO (gas) | 0xfdd50ea59ab30e271fee492c1158036aa445be4fb122aedc0041284c185e2940 | 0.1 |
| Summoning DAO (gas) | 0x4642a561b94a0eed408ee953249f8f09ecd63358a3e30702279e90d043fe53c6 | 0.055 |
| Sentinels VOX | 0x2cdee7ca734e7c749de6a66ea0980f6b32ab0cd65350dce20d59deca34bbbbd2 | 0.4 |
| Summoning DAO (gas) | 0x2a5b6581caa9457f4cf4db8013f0a039c29784d492d45dda3a4ab5966bc68ac5 | 0.03 |
| TOTAL | Sum of all costs from the initial loan | 6.35225 |
That is 7.075 - 6.35225 = 0.72275 ETH
In the Steward safe is now 0.9064 ETH, because 0.18365 ETH was collected through 025% entry fee. For this reason we count off 0.9064 ETH to OFC discout both the ETH not spent and the ETH we collected during the Genesis Event.
I am checking in with the media responsibles about all the Twitter promo as we have it labeled as promo/marketing and I am not 100% sure if all of that was for Twitter or other platforms as well.
Let us know if something is unclear please.
From telegram chat by @DecentralizedSolutions on May 6th.
I’d like to open a discussion about LIP-0002.
lip/lip-0002.md at main · lunardao/lip · GitHub
My concern is that by draining almost 1/3 of the DAO treasury a few days after the first raise we may potentially lose future investors.
I’m in no way suggesting that the people who worked so hard to create this DAO aren’t compensated for their efforts, I just think they should be compensated in our native token, rather than $ETH.
If we had gotten even close to our initial goal things would be different, $28-$29k wouldn’t be a big deal. But considering the limited raise and the funds available for DAO investments I think this LIP may kill future investor interest.
If such a large portion of funds are used for operational expenses it means our investments will be required to do so much better in order for future investors to get a return.
I get that this is unlike many other DAOs/investments because privacy and anonymity is a cause that is so important to many of us, but people generally/often make decisions on where to put their money based on the economical aspect. People may give a portion of their wealth to charity or causes they care about, but few are willing to put up serious money without thinking they might get a return.
I get that it’s easy to come in as an outsider after many months of hard work on a project and have opinions about compensation, and I feel bad about doing so. I hate coming across as negative or critical of the hard work done, because I’m not. I’m highly impressed with everything I’ve seen so far, and I think that professionalism could make it possible to raise millions. I just think paying salaries in $ETH is counterproductive to the long-term success of the DAO, (at least at this early stage).
If the team took payment in our native token instead (other than direct out of pocket expenses/the loan which of course must be paid) it would show their long-term commitment to the project and this would make future investment more likely.
I don’t think I’ll comment any more on this topic/LIP, because it’s really just an opinion and I can see many arguments for why my opinion may be wrong, but at least I’ve aired my thoughts.🤷‍♂
I was asked to share my thoughts that I posted on Telegram here in the forum regarding LIP-0002, but I see now that @ogma already shared my comment in the post above, thanks.
Thank you @Decentralized for sharing your thoughts. I think they are valid concerns. I will address some of them.
I fully agree that this quite a significant number and trying to wrap my head around how to do this well in order to make the DAO successful.
The proposal is already covering 30% to people who had been helping us this whole time expecting they will get paid one day and 15% to the founders. That is $300 a month for a full time labour. For example one community member was offering a video editor to push out the message. However I think it’s essential for the DAOand the price the video editor was asking for was a penny, I don’t from what we can start to pay new people and how I would explain this to the external graphic, sys admin, web admin, or the folks from DAOhaus that we had just left them behind after all this time.
I know this is not what is proposed, this is me sharing the difficulty in finding what’s the right thing in moving forward.
On the question of the governance token compensation. $VOX are shares. If we mint the same amount but in $VOX, we need to inform the DAO Squad that this will still result in the $VOX value being diluted. I agree that this may be a better solution for the proposed problem, however some may exit because they will need at least some part of the money, but most will probably not.
This solution would also mean more decentralization, because I think the best way would be to collect every listed participant address and make it a multicall proposal where the shares get minted directly to each of them on execution.
By this (by default) all ETH stays in the treasury and however some may be withdrawn the contributors will be in the DAO as they also want to support the DAO (why the heck would they work 6 months with a no promise otherwise).
One thing to clarify: None of us sees this as a charity for privacy. Privacy is ultimately bullish and the DAO is made to bring returns. In terms of monetary profit, privacy solutions and educational know-how. That is the incentive and drive to do this since the beginning!
However, that means we can’t be the charity neither. With that said I would like to ask for any other ideas how to combine the problems mentioned as we are opened to find any solution fitting the DAO the best way, including all the aspects of the organization.
I find myself aligned with @decentralized. Although, I don’t think that the contributors should be paid in Vox either. As ogma says, this isn’t a charity for privacy, but as I see it it is also not a company founded around a quick turnaround.
If this is more like an open source project, then contributors are donating their time for a better world.
I would suggest to vote a % of DAO profits after for example 2 years (hopefully peak of the bull) to go to contributors, or even better but more involved: OPs retroactive public good funding: you get paid after making an impact with your work. This ensures alignment and results orientation.
Also, in any case, to apply in gitcoin grants.
Later, I think it would be very nice to run a donation raise. The principled participants in the DAO will have an opportunity to show generosity.
I hope this doesn’t come across as callous. I am all for compensation but maybe in a more aligned way.
A possibility can be VOX-Loot where the contributors cannot leverage the compensation as a governance power.
The charity problem goes both ways imo. As to have a platform created, advertised and managed by people who search the investment possibilities, introduce them to the community, make research and build spaces for the community to discuss, vote and invest and paying all of this themselves is a model which cannot work. Kind of close to charity but the other way around.
We had Gitcoin grants on the list in earlier days but some community members told us off as: You shall not apply for any grants as you provide for profit space for your community. Your work is part of the value and it looks bad for the DAO to provide space for people to profit while asking other parties for grants.
I believe it’s too early to spend the treasury for this purpose. There are many people who would help for free or for a promise of sharing in some future revenue. I wasn’t trying to join to earn money and the suspision of that from some members here disillusioned me for bit. But I really and sincerely still want this effort to be successful and I strongly believe if we liquidate any part of the treasuty to pay people, the whole thing will fall apart. Main reason is imo what has been done here so far has not been extraordinary. In summary, however I agree with payment with a lunardao token (e.g. inflating the vox).
Agree here. I thought the conversation around you wishing to help was a bit odd.
I would prefer profit sharing over skewing governance.
Here is an updated LIP-0002 which is based on the community feedback:
https://github.com/lunardao/lip/blob/main/lip-0002.md
I would say that anyone that can contribute should feel free to do so in terms of time and effort. The amount of ETH raised, because it was ~50 ETH originally, makes the ask for operational costs a larger %.
There were many external contributors and participants that got this stood up and this wouldnt have been possible without them.
Main reason is imo what has been done here so far has not been extraordinary
The critique gives some information (that nothing valuable is really being offered), but also if its as simple as saying this DAO isnt anything special, how come there hasnt been a completely permissionless investment DAO focused on building privacy and anonymity solutions yet?
This project wouldnt exist if it weren’t for the externals, and the asking amount has also greatly been lowered.
Of course people can work without pay, but that can only go on for so long. Or someone else can take up the mantle (but no one has done so up to this point) and this is why a conversation around getting these expenses paid is occurring.
Can you reexplain how the VOX-LOOT works?
I also don’t understand the purpose of the LUNAR token?
Thanks
$VOX-loot represents members’ value of shares in a non-voting form.
$LUNAR is intended as community token which would be permissionless and tradable.
I value your thoughtful input.
The LIP is faaaaar from optional. It is a fight from the corner and uphill. It is the battle of a new baby DAO, based on anons, against the market in its state of fear and uncertainty. It is a battle to find its stable position in crypto, which (even in our waters) became more based on cult figures and quick coin flipping.
We used all the strings we had as a combination of anon core creating an opportunity for the new raising community, combined knowledge, verifiable code, the Sentinel setup and trust building marketing etc and last but not least, shared some initial roadmap including several privacy solutions and teams to deliver them (read investment possibilities).
Almost all Objectives and Key Results were met,except one - the main one - RAISE > 700ETH. We can analyze why this happened, why are we in the moment that value and wealth is misunderstood with immediate profit, instead of seeing profit as a part of wealth, where the value is also given to the infrastructure and people building that.
We can feel bitter and unfair about it, but that would prevent us from sober analysis and moving forward. In the end we build this up and if we didn’t meet even 10% of the minimum ETH target - we failed.
On the other hand to say we failed and we have to do better won’t solve the situation as 6 ppl worked 6+ months full time, another ~10 people contributed as they believed that this will increase possibilities for freedom and with our promise that once we launch we will get them paid. Not overpaid, not perhaps a normal rate paid at first, but somehow paid. That’s why the proposal was 30% for externals (sys admin, web admin, graphic, dev, ai operator, lpf host, lawyers, translator) and 15% for stewards (setting up the structure, researching the dao, summoning, media, management of allies, community, getting services running, marketing etc etc). Lastly part of the LIP was to pay the initial loan (7.075 ETH minus what is still in steward multisig = 6.1686 ETH) which was used to pay domains, vps, web3 and ui dev deposit, gas to summon the dao, and some promotion/marketing.
As you said, even this is at this point 50% of the DAO. Are we in a point that we see value in this to a degree that we are willing to dilute shares and pay this and make everyone at least somehow happy (however it’s far from optional to the investors as well as to the contributors)? @loading_wait and @yvesedwards were positive on the valuation of this proposal (none of the two is currently receiving any of the compensation fyi) and few had joined that.
Meanwhile others had seen this as too high and few had exited the DAO completely.
Thankfully the Squad has been taking initiative and brings ideas, such as LIP-0004, the $LUNAR community token proposal (which we have all the contracts and UI ready, just need to agree and make a decent tokenomics and plan and not rush it) etc.
I am worried that the risk of more people exiting the DAO is too high. That would result us fighting the battle from the corner uphill even weaker. It seems that this is not a time to fight harder till the last one standing but smarter. As lunarpunks we are guerrilla - partisans using the forests of encryption to move. We will never be able to line up millions to face the tyrants out in the desert. We don’t play their game as they never asked us if if want to play theirs neither.
With all that said, we see the trust and the commitment many here showed and want to keep working towards freedom together. In practice this means painful weeks of calls to people who put their hearts to the DAO and explaining that we just can’t pay anything now but will do as soon as possible. Discussing with some of the stewards how few of us can afford to continue the way we did etc.
I don’t see this proposal as not paying back or not giving value to those people, but as a shift in timing and strategy based on the reality of the DAO and your all’s feedback. to do it right for the DAO, including it’s key contributors and founders.
If there is a sentiment that we all can afford more - in $VOX or $VOX-LOOT - so the ETH stays in the treasury and the proposal of $FIRN purchase can still go through, we all are more than happy to ask for a bit more.
I am holding back with submitting the numbers on chain just yet and looking forward for more input.
Last note on the $VOX/$VOX-LOOT instead of paying ETH. es, everyone asked is fine with that solution. These people supported (by passing on ETH or time/effort) the DAO in times when all of this was just a crazy idea. They all have highest incentive to receive and hold shares over ETH. In fact some of them would like that better as they couldn’t join the raise with more than minimum because they simply didn’t have more for the above mentioned reasons.
I hope this explained.
I was reading the feedback on the LIP which was shared on tg. Some mentioned that allocating $VOX (shares) would give unfair voting power to Stewards, so we changes it to $VOX-loot. When it changed, some said that without incentives what prevents anyone from ragequitting? The amount in itself (a bit more than 5 ETH) is so insignificant that it won’t make a tremendous difference though of course it’s a fair question. Everyone who might receive these funds have made a promise to not ragequit until next raise. One could argue that there is nothing that can ensure someone to keep their word. At the same time all of us having funds invested in the DAO rely on each other, but core is the only part which have to be accountable to others. Anyone else can ragequit at any time, no questions asked, and do not have to make any promises to commit to the development of the Dao. If those included in this LIP are willing to make a promise to stay in the Dao after working without compensation for over six month, when this compensation is a fragment of what anyone would expect or need for this type of work - it is a signal for a long term commitment. I wanted to share this first of all. It was written on tg that we went from one extreme (of requesting 1/3 of treasury) to the another extreme (not even paying back what was agreed upon) and to this I can just say that LunarDAO is a part of the lunarpunk cycle. There are surveillance measures in motion such as CBDCs which will permanently change our lives in the years to come. If we are serious about building structures which empowers us, ensures sovereignty then we have to look beyond our immediate situation. This for Stewards means that the community and the squad is more important than us, and we need long term perspectives and persistence to realize our mission. Therefore, we concluded that how the Dao function might change - maybe the function of Stewards is not supported and the ongoing operations will be on voluntary based engagement is preferred - we will adapt to the will of the community. I believe that what we are doing now is incredibly important and feel inspired when learning about the different privacy project and tools that are developed or in development. I read about the censorship going on in Iran, much like China, was watching Palatir on how AI is facilitating the warfare of hegemonical powers. We are still few here, but we are many who are experiencing the consequences of central authorities seizing control. This informs us that we need to step up our game, to not waste time, to have a strategy and take intentional steps towards the life we want to live.
Every high cause project like this require some OGs who plant the seeds altruistically. Some of them get to become filthy rich, don’t get me wrong, but that’s far from their goal. That said, the last thing I want is that this effort fails. The bear market is to blame; we all expected it to have ended by later part of last year. That didn’t happen. Perhaps, we should request the Stewards to recieve their IOUs (we can just call it that, or just vox-loots) and be patient for another year or so. Every 6 months or so on an “open season” (regular intervals, even without governance), we can open for new or added investments or raises. By next year we’ll have more money and some of our investments have started to bear fruit.
edit: just saw the modified proposal; in principle I agree. But the payment amounts are 3 times the total treasury today. I don’t know how new vox-loot is issued when new money comes in. In principle stewards can still ragequit and we are asked to trust they won’t. I am asking them to trust us for another year. I am also in favor of a tip jar for stewards.
@sadar I meant extraordinary in the literal sense. The work of setting up a website etc is not extraordinary but pulling like-minded crypto people in the bear market has been extraordinary. I stand corrected. We being at one place and caring is extraordinary.
Maybe I misunderstood your input. Just to clarify. The requested amount is 5.075 ETH worth of $VOX-LOOT.
https://github.com/lunardao/lip/blob/main/lip-0002.md#implementation
Exactly, the proposal is to pass value of 5.075 ETH for now.
@bil and everyone: to understand better the math logic behind the shares, check out these basic formulas dao/README.md at master · lunardao/dao · GitHub