I feel there are multiple ways we could handle this.
only token holder verified channels (discord has functionality)
and im sure others have more creative ways of handling
There’s a contradiction in your statements:
- Either A) AragonDAO is responsible for the treasury, can swap its tokens, and then a discussion around securities laws can happen.
- Or B) Aragon Association is an independent org with a treasury, can swap tokens as it has done before, which does not imply that it is a security as ANT holders have no right over it.
Right now the B) prevails, especially after the latest move where everything about the ANT token was removed from the website. Hence, AA buying ANT is similar to any legal entity buying ANT, which doesn’t make it a security.
Also, if you want to assert an authority over legal discussions, please state your name + qualifications.
[EDIT]: it appears that a token swap being discussed beforehand has already happened without any legal drama?
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It’s a Decentralized Identifier, or if you want to actually just talk like a normal person, an Ethereum wallet address. I wouldn’t take much notice, it’s just some neek who dropped out of first year law school getting off on wanting to seem useful. It’s called ‘just use Collabland for a token-gated Discord channel’ if you haven’t got some weird cosplay fetish.
Then this is for sure possible, token gated forum, can make it anonymous as well. Maybe the ZKP research team that the dao funded have something already suited for this!
Should we maybe break out this forum posts into multiple pieces?
- buyback mechs
2.wANT incentives
ect.
so we can get more focused on a few fronts?
just a idea!
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Thanks everyone for the comments! IANAL so I’m gonna focus on tokenomics. Here are a few points/brainstorming for the community:
- The proposal really is a bundle of proposals, but I do think it’s quite important to do everything in here. E.g. doing the short-term proposals without the long-term won’t really solve much.
- Dev DAO might not be needed if the whole DAO is governed by veANT instead of wANT. It does simplify things a lot. veTokens have their pitfalls (namely interacting from DAOs/smart wallets), but maybe it’s a tradeoff worth making, and the governance could whitelist legit DAOs that want to participate in governance. It’s a pain in the ass, but a 51% attack could be worse!
- A short-term buyback (in the weeks/months) might just end up on opportunistic players buying/selling and even shorting, as someone mentioned in this thread. What would be the tradeoffs versus implementing ragequit? AFAIK ragequit would still bring the price to book value and bring ANT to the DAO to reward core contributors and partners. EDIT: I just realized ragequit wouldn’t work while vesting the treasury.
Yeah, I linked a report of theirs on the original post. They seem legit.
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I think a Wonderland type ragequit is better than market buying on the dex. Much more efficient, no slippage.
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it is fairly well established that the DAO can implement rage-quit in the current legal setup. This conversation has happened across many DAOs over the last few months, all with almost the same exact dynamic (team and stakeholders are clearly not aligned, token cannot be a security, treasury is in the midst of decentralizing).
The easy answer is to create a new SpinoffDAO that members can choose to swap into at a fixed exchange rate. Happy to chat with members of AA team or @luis on realistic paths of least resistance (DMs are open).
This would create a path for both sides to get what they want and remain compliant. Let’s get to an amicable solution here instead of making things ugly - it hurts everyone.
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Interesting! Is there a way to offer a RQ for a period of time (1-3 weeks?) to those who wish to exit and then proceed with the treasury vest?
- allows those who wish to exit at a fair valuation
- with wANT incentivizing /treasury vest scheduled after RQ we could see a lot of people stay.
and so on
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AFAIK that has the same short-term drawbacks of a buyback. Token would go to book value quickly as people race to buy it to claim assets, then after 1-3 weeks massively oversold to after-claim book value. Would be easy to short (e.g. buy tokens, claim, short). Not a fan.
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Yeah agreed, I am pondering some sort of solution that has both elements of RQ and elements of buybacks to find a equilibrium. Kind of like OHM style RBS… ill think more on it and report back!
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Nexus Mutual is implementing something like this for their tender offer. One-way Uni v2-style pool where the treasury is the only buyer and the price oracle is set to the current market price and ratchets up to BV over a fixed period of time. Also an option.
so in summary three high level options (correct me if I’m missing anything):
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Short-term buyback: Take a piece of the treasury and use it to buy ANT on CEX/DEX. Would have to be transparent (probable preferable given trust levels are low with the team) and thus front-runnable.
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RageQuit: form SpinoffDAO, set fixed exchange rate and do token swap for those in the DAO that would like to leave. Easier to implement. @luis it would be helpful to understand better the negatives of this approach in your mind. Given this is a Price/Book Value sort of transaction, the Book Value per share would not go down after the claim, just the amount of shares. The transaction would actually increase the Book Value per share. So not an easy short IMO.
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Dutch Tender: set up one-way DEX pool and ratchet price of ANT from market price gradually to BV over time. Less front-runnable, transparent, but requires more work for implementation (e.g. simulating parametrization). Similar financial impact as RageQuit - accretive to Book Value per share for remaining holders since the treasury is buying back $1 shares at or below $1.
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Some thoughts
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Improve the DAO governance. Aragon is at the forefront of DAO governance but still you made the “51% attack” to easy - whether this was an “attack” or a legit community effort I’m letting aside but it was simple and governance should be improved. Make a proper framework, improve this for yourself and be an example for others. If you have a token governance framework, and the majority thinks we should do buybacks that should be respected (no discussion on this really).
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Generally not in favour of buybacks. The treasury was not intended for financial engineering. Think about other ways on how to make value for your token holders - that it is underpriced is a clear and loud market signal. What could be done, for example, is to invest in tooling. Don’t just give grants (without anything in return), support the ecosystem while there is still value going back to the treasury and token holders. Why not build an incubator for DAO tooling? Invest the resources in the treasury in what you are good at. Also maybe think of linking more utility to the token so that it needs to be used more (which should create more upside buy pressure).
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My point 2 is, however, something that requires a longer term time line so the benefits do not go to current token holders for quite some time. Maybe find a resolution with limited buy backs AND developing a grand vision of how you will use the treasury funds to create value for the token holders. This can bring token value back to treasury value (and beyond)
I am for something longer term, buy-back over a more extended period of 1-2 years, with a function that distributes ANT to contributors and other DAOs to incentivise them to use the product. Rage Quit seems like it has zero legs unless it runs for years and the assets are vested over +1 year to the recipients. Otherwise, it will just be shorted at the end, which defeats the whole purpose.
Sure @F.C.Savigny can provide more clarity on the longer term. FYI he is rate-limited looks like if you post more than 10 times in a day, you get turned off for 24 hours 
. Will work on removing this for everyone/if it happens to anyone else, dm me.
Maybe a way to remove the rate limit for certain people like @F.C.Savigny ?
I was ratelimited as well.
Regarding shorts, that line of argument i dont think makes much sense - there is no benefit to shorting after a ragequit. When you go short you expect others to sell after you sell, but ragequit removes the supply. If anything people who speculatively short would get squeezed.
P.S when i look at the orderflow of ANT on cex’s it looks like there is systematic selling, by anychance are there any deals with MM that involve options for them to buy ant?
Yes removing it now/trying. It is evident that if you do it quickly to price with the rise to BV, the second the ragequit ends, the value will drop for the assets that have exited.
Will find out but pretty sure that there is no MM buying ANT.
I dont get the argument where when the ragequit ends the value will drop, that requires people who bought ant to sell ant - but if its a rage quit the people who bought ant would have essentially sold it to the treasury. So unless the treasury dumps that supply cannot hit the market?
There would be someone MM on binance for sure. Appreciate looking into it.
Now a Buyback i can see this point of view, because the treasury buys from the open market - the people who hold ant sell into the open market after the buyback.
There are a few problems unaddressed here:
1/ There are no reasons to hold ANT
Wrapping your ANT and participating in the governance currently brings 0 value, to the DAO or to the holder. The DAO is weak, and the AA is the real one in charge. AragonDAO currently has no real revenue stream, so the ANT token has no organic demand. Everyone is selling, including the team members paid in tokens.
2/ The DAO has low wANT/ANT ratio
As such, the DAO is in the hand of a few whales. The AA says that it’s a concern and does not want to transfer funds as a result. This weakens further the DAO, and we’re in a self-reinforcing negative loop. This problem is ancient, with discussions regarding the charter adoption by an ultra-low minority reflecting this already.
3/ Product-market-fit hasn’t been found already
The massive treasury is often seen as a boon, but is in my opinion more a burden for the DAO. Because there’s no profitability requirements, there are no incentives to build things that will be used, and economic models that allow the project to be self-sufficient, and generate surplus. Even the CTO admits it:
AragonDAO is already in the “long term”, it’s not a new project exploring the market. Now is the time to think about how to generate revenue. Otherwise, the ANT token’s only utility will be to call swapExactTokensForETH() on Uniswap and get ETH in exchange. Contributors are rational, and they know that if the token isn’t going to retain value, they’ll sell it (and they do), whatever the number of tokens we pay them.
This is why I think that @luis plan is totally right.
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It solves the short-term, urgent woes of ANT regarding book value, which will destroy the DAO in the long term. The AA takeover was already bad for the DAO and will get worse if no action is taken.
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It creates an initial revenue stream for the project that will switch the project toward a profit-oriented mentality that is needed to succeed. All the “true believers” are here, or have left. In the current state, no one will come. There is a need for a new start, and a new way of thinking.
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It creates real incentives for wrapping ANT and participating in the governance. The current AA centralization attack will only decrease participation in the DAO, similar to the voter disaffection in regimes becoming authoritarian/oligarchic.
As an ending note, I’d like to mention the first commitment of the Aragon Manifesto:
We are committed to building organizational forms that defend self-sovereignty — where a user can always exercise choice, either by participating or exiting.
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Aragon DAO was deployed two months ago. It is only two months old. I think that is important for everyone to remember.
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The new protocol was also deployed two months ago. Building something from the ground up takes time. When Aragon launched, they had to build everything; this did not happen overnight. The most crucial point is making lindy on the smart contracts, one rushed release resulting in a hack, and everything goes back to 0.
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Agree. One of the most efficient ways is to incentivise wANT holders with treasury-generated yield alongside a buyback that distributes to contributors, going to BV those can exit that wish, and those that want to stay can generate yield.
Where is your statistic around contributors selling coming from, or is it just perception & opinion @Yakitori?
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