A path forward with exit (RQ) and voice (veANT)

Context

Aragon built a bunch of great code until 2020 that some massive projects are using to this day. The entirety of that team is gone. There is a new team that started getting assembled in late 2021. The new team shipped a great MVP in Feb 2023.

In response to expressed tokenholder desire, the Aragon Association (steward of the treasury consisting of Aragon ICO proceeds) has initiated a process to transfer that treasury to a DAO controlled by token holders. Meanwhile, Aragon’s treasury has been managed well and exceeds the project market capitalization.

Communication around establishing the Aragon DAO and the asset transfer process has been vague at best. Market participants have become interested in arbitrating the treasury to market cap gap through governance action.

How do we move forward without demolishing Aragon’s credibility in the industry? That credibility is essential to the market standing of aragonOSx, Aragon App, and other products streaming from Aragon.

Problems:

  • Failure to communicate coherently:
    • The fact that the treasury is not yet controlled by ANT holders
    • The timeline at which that treasury transfer will happen is a big questionmark
  • The team has almost no say in the future of the project (average pre-tax token package is around 20k ANT, most of it still unvested on account of the team being around for <2 years)
  • Ambiguity around the potential gap between treasury and market cap - it is possible that that gap is overestimated
  • Panicked initial reaction to questioning by token holders has destroyed the goodwill of AA and contributors when interfacing with “external” tokenholders

Solution:

Implement a rage-quit or an alternative minority protection mechanism and design/negotiate future alignment with that mechanism already in place.

Details

We have seen a series of proposals hit the forum over the past few weeks, and while a lot has excellent ideas, plenty of complexity is involved. Furthermore, they bundle a wide array of activities in a single proposal. Some of these are irrelevant to the discussion and open the door for lengthy deliberations and potential exploits to hastily implemented dynamics.

To be explicitly clear, this is not a proposal in itself. This post aims to propose a logical sequence of distinct proposals and actions. One that delineates unrelated issues and follows the path of incremental small steps. Hence the sequence is essential.

I assume that AA will act in good faith and honor these, in essence, signaling proposals, to maintain the integrity of the Aragon brand. That being said, it’s naive to assume that the committee members will take any action that exposes them to personal legal liability.

Ideally, AA would be willing and able to use the ANT they hold to help move this process in a manner aligned with the values of the industry we operate in - wrap and vote onchain if needed to ensure the project’s continuity.

Proposal 0: [Ideally avoidable]

There have been detailed discussions around legal structures and tax implications in Switzerland, specifically concerning constraining some actions for AA and asset transfer. Due to a lack of trust between the involved parties, a possibility worth exploring is to use some of the current $300k in the Aragon DAO and get an independent legal and tax opinion on the available paths forward.

Ideally, we can avoid this and move to the meat of what needs to get done.

Proposal 1:

Introduce an “escape hatch” to the Aragon DAO as a rage-quit function or another exit mechanism (inverse bonds, buybacks, etc.). Possibly including an exit tax. @alex-arca in ARCA’s proposal uses an implied 5% exit tax (in the form of a discount to “book value” on the floor of the buyback price), we have seen the Token Engineering Community implement a 12% exit tax, and in normie space, we know the US has a ~40% exit tax (lol). Such a tax can ensure the project’s continuity if all token-holders choose to exit.

  • There are several exit options outlined by @Wismerhill here - the exact mechanism is TBD
  • The existence and extent of an exit tax is also TBD
  • Ideally, the ANT redeemed through the escape hatch gets burned. If required by legal constraints, a more complex way of taking it out of circulation can be explored.
  • Redemption is pro-rata of treasury composition (to avoid complexities around covering MANA, UNI, or whatever other holding into ETH)

Proposal 2:

AA to transfer the entire liquid treasury to the Aragon DAO, net of:

  • Actual tax liabilities - the current $40M provision seems quite high (might be acurate but might also be an overcautious exaggeration)
  • The ANT held by AA, which, as communicated, is meant to incentivize current and future contributions to the project

AA shall convert illiquid assets into liquid ones where possible and practicable.

Proposal 3:

Move the governance from wANT to veANT, as suggested by @luis HERE. It is an important way to align governance rights with long-term financial incentives. However, giving those who disagree with that approach an exit is essential. Agree with @AntHoldersUnite and @dcfgod in the comments HERE - veANT is not either/or versus Rage Quit - it’s possibly both.

Potential follow-on proposals:

These are all viable ideas (too many people to mention) that have been raised but have no relation to implementing an exit hatch and veANT. They should be delineated from the current discussion as they introduce complexity and potential vulnerabilities. Its a list, not an endorsement:

  • AA to increase token packages of current contributors (ideally, team members should be able to vote with these tokens) [doesn’t have to be a proposal technically]
  • Whether to stake the ETH currently in the treasury and what to do with the yield generated
  • What should be the asset composition of the treasury
  • Should the treasury be actively managed
  • ANT minter parameters and the transfer of the winter from AA to the Aragon DAO
  • Value accrual into ANT

Disclaimers:

At the time of publishing, this thread does not reflect the stance of the Growth Guild or any contributor, delegate, or token-holder other than myself.

I am a contributor to the Growth Guild, a delegate, and a tokenholder. I co-authored Aragon’s [Governance Hyperstructure Strategy](strategy-governance-hyperstructure/strategy-governance-hyperstructure.md at v1.0.0 · aragon/strategy-governance-hyperstructure · GitHub, support the product direction that guilds are pursuing, and have been a vocal critic of things that do not work at Aragon. Lastly I identified the “treasury drain” as a vulnerability in October 2022 during the ideation of the current Aragon DAO, identified that the Discord members inquiring about the treasury transfers are not “random trolls”, and advocated against the initial ban that was implemented - relevant context for my experience and ideological inclinations.

3 Likes

I’m not sure what feedback this post is asking for but would say that I agree with the majority of it

On the contributors note - if you follow the contributors payouts, many of them are active sellers. It’s hard to say the team isn’t getting enough tokens to vote, while the chain shows they get rid of their tokens anytime the price goes up a little bit.

That being said, you’re clearly aligned with token holder success so I would love for you to have more votes :stuck_out_tongue:

Overall I’m a fan of the proposal and the idea of a rage quit mechanism if a ve-model was introduced into the tokenomics of ANT and the redeemed ANT was used to support the ANT ecosystem through grants etc.

One point of criticism I have here is around the 12% exit tax which seems high and pretty arbitrary, especially when anchored to the US’ 40% exit tax for citizens (which isn’t an adequate comparison). Something like 3-5% seems fairer overall and is also being explored as the exit tax rate for Nexus Mutual which has a comparable treasury size.

Fair point - the ask is to not get distracted by distant concepts like the value capture of our products that launched 3 months ago and is yet to gain lindy and focus discussions on the actionable near term steps:

  • Escape hatchet
  • Asset transfer
  • veANT transition

agree - lets focus the convo

how do you see next steps happening? i feel we’re in this limbo where a lot of people agree that all 3 of these things need to happen

what’s the process in getting a vote or some real action?

Thanks for the feedback. Please take a second look.

  • I am not proposing 12%
  • It is not arbitrary. It is the only existing reference point in the industry I found
  • Neither me calling it “normie” nor the “lol” suggest I am taking the 40% seriously. Let alone anchoring there.

Can you please share the source for the Nexus Mutual figure? It would be condusive to an adult dialog if we abstain from subjective classifications as “fair”

2 Likes

Roughly:

  • Figure out if Proposal 0 is needed or there is enough good will and trust to proceed without it
  • Start working on the first 3 proposals in compartmentalized threads. Order might have to change for legal or other reasons, hope not but its early innings, I might be wrong about the sequence.

Keeping in mind that technically all votes are signalling and technically depend on the AA committee to consider them - while the contracts are live they don’t control the treasury “yet”

Thanks sharing some of the proposed next steps Ivan. Look forward to working through them.

1 Like

Thanks for posting Ivan!

My 2c re/ buyback vs ragequit:

2 Likes

Thank you for weighing in!

I don’t have particular attachments to the mechanism. Buyback is also a great option - I think the main aspect is to give tokehnolders an exit while we are calibrating the voice element (veANT).

In addition to the cap on spending for the buyback we can time it around the veANT implementation. Something along the lines of:

  • Buyback gets voted
  • Buyback starts
  • veANT governance transition vote begins (assume proposals are worked on in parallel)
  • veANT governance transition gets implemented (assuming vote passes)
  • Buyback ends

The buyback also can be subject to exit tax to dis-incentivize short term arbitraging as per ARCA’s proposal and/or the mechanism TEC is using

1 Like

This is a pretty concerning signal. Can you please shoot me the details of this so I can validate for myself - either here or in DM

the chain tells all! Its really quite sad. One contributor offloaded 10k ANT prior to the Aragin grant announcement…

Can you please share the data, not the statement - DM me the address

0xCD18eAa163733Da39c232722cBC4E8940b1D8888 i recommend snooping through this for a little bit.

Dont mean to be short but i am not in the business of doxing wallets.

Adding to what ant holder said

The process is simple, just take a look at the payment streams. Many sell directly, some make 1-2 hops and sell, but there’s tons of it.

I noticed some contributors getting over $20k/month in ANT, and then selling it. Saying they then don’t have enough voting power is…

Some with public ens names showing exactly who they are even dump directly :joy:

1 Like

I respect that, but also I joined back in the “Don’t Trust, Verify” days, so apologies for not just taking your statement at face value. That being said - appreciate the spawn point!

To one of my earlier points - team is new. Those are not monthly packages but first year cliffs. So its more like $1.5k per month, not $20k

From what I see:

  • most activity is resetting sablier streams as contributors are being paid by guild streams, not the AA anymore
  • a large chunk of the distributed ANT ends up being wrapped
  • There is indeed a bit of selling (maybe taxes, maybe conviction)

Someone more experienced with onchain analytics and/or someone who can shell out for nansen can do a visualisation of “where ANT ends up”

2 Likes

i urge to look a little harder! A report with details on this topic might help… coming soon!

1 Like

Regardless, selling the first year cliff and then saying “I need more votes” is odd

Outside of this, what is next steps here? Would love to help move things along towards getting a meaty buyback going