Counter Proposal [SGP - 0003] Shimmer Growth Committee as part of the Tangle Ecosystem Association
A more Community Focused Shimmer Growth Committee
This Poll will be open and closes on Monday, 19 December, at 3 pm CET.
This counter proposal is written in accordance with [The Shimmer Governance Framework]
If you support this counter proposal to please vote for it in this Poll:
- Yes, i support this counter-proposal to [SGP-0003] Shimmer Growth Committee as part of the Tangle Ecosystem Association]
- No, I do not support this counter-proposal.
Summary
A lot has changed in the past month or two.
Dominik Schiener’s original proposal to establish a Shimmer Growth Committee still provides a solid foundation for an important initiative and has been well received, but there are a few aspects of the proposal that could benefit the community and Shimmer further with minor alterations.
This counter proposal aims to build upon the original proposal for the Shimmer Growth Committee, but with a less ambiguous and more transparent initiative that utilises only 35% of the community treasury funds and supports a community focused committee comprising of four community members and one IF member.
We ask the community to decide on our proposal to:
- Continue with the creation of the Shimmer Growth Committee as part of the Tangle Ecosystem Association but with four community representatives and one Foundation representative
- To reduce the allocated financial commitment from 50% to 35% of the community treasury funds.
- To follow an open and transparent process to disclose expenditure and resource allocation of community funds.
Overview
With the market in turmoil it is evident the community treasury requires some serious money management, and that optimised value can be achieved with the community funds. With the current proposal, albeit geared towards a quick spend for maximum value, it is somewhat ambiguous in its intentions, very Foundation oriented, and not focused on long-term community benefits.
With the IOTA Foundation receiving 10% of SMR supply under the form of the Tangle Ecosystem Association, it was expressed that these funds would be used towards exchange integrations, marketing, partnerships, and other opportunities, as well as now developer resources. It has also become apparent that 30% of these funds have already been allocated, with Dom sharing the basic IF financial status in Discord as containing only 7% of the Shimmer supply.
With an ever down trending market, long-term stability for the community treasury is of upmost importance, and an allocation of 50% of the token supply that could be hastily distributed could leave the community treasury very little for its long-term survival.
Alongside the financial implications of a 50% allocation, the current proposal is very ambiguous in its presentation and clearly favours an IF led committee that can heavily influence the outcome of the voting and the allocation of community treasury funds towards IF focused goals over community focused ones.
Our concerns with the current proposal are:
It immediately leaves the community treasury with only 35% of funds by the end of the first year.
It puts control of the allocated 50% in the hands of the TEA. Swiss legislation - the board of any Swiss Association have full control over underlying entities, committees, and member votes and decisions.
It puts emphasis on IF influence and control, isolating the community from important decisions, such as marketing targets, goals, and partners – with Bitboy appearing three times in recent months, we can’t exactly say current marketing is on point.
There is zero transparency or clarity into the actual targeting, allocation, accountability, and public disclosure of these funds.
The Proposal
The original proposal has merit and can work, but to focus on the interests of the community we propose to keep the premise of the original proposal, but with the following alterations:
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Reduce the fund allocation to 35% of the community treasury.
50% of community funds are a lot to commit to an ambiguous and unclear initiative, a reduction to 35% would provide the community treasury a remaining 5% of the total Shimmer supply for the sustainability of the initiative as it formulates a structure and long-term financial model over the first year. -
Commit one IF employee and four community members to the committee
This provides more focus on the community’s priorities and intentions over the foundations, whilst still providing IF expertise and inputs into the committee. -
Follow a clear proposal discussion structure and voting system
Providing transparency on meetings and discussions between the IF representative and the community representatives, with IF and community members issuing proposed expenditures to the committee, followed by discussion and voting, with all meeting minutes recorded, and all decisions publicly released. -
Publish all decisions and expenditures in the public domain.
Create an open section of the Governance forum where all decisions and meeting minutes are published for the community to see. Also open a transparency section on the forum where all expenses are published in the public domain.
Motivation
The longevity of the community funds is of importance to support a sustainable long-term ecosystem for the future of Shimmer and IOTA. This requires the community to manage their allocated funds in a sustainable manner.
As is currently the case, 65% of the entire treasury has been allocated for use in the first 12 months, which does not offer any guaranteed long-term future for the initiative.
Second to this, as the current proposal presents a highly Foundation influenced committee, the actual control of these tokens lays more in the hands of the Foundation, rather than the community.
Dominik Schiener has said the aim of this initiative is to allow the IF to support and provide guidance and advice to the community with committee representatives. This counter proposal presents the opportunity for the IF to continue with this mission and still guide, advise, and support the community with a representative that can bring professional insights and proposals for potential avenues of marketing and other activities, but with the community voice being prominent in the final decision making.
Another concern, which has recently been heavily discussed within the community, is that of transparency. The current proposal does not present any guidelines for disclosure or accountability as to where these funds are being allocated.
To provide the community with a clear view of where the funds are going, it is important to add an accessible and open platform for transparency that the community can regularly observe, to understand where the allocated funds are going. Even with NDAs in place, there are certain levels of transparency that can be implemented without disclosing NDA specifics.
Specification
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The committee will consist of 5 members, wherein four are voted in by the community and one is a member of the IOTA Foundation (Christian Saur or Holger Webel were proposed in Dominik Schiener’s original proposal). A community vote will select the Community members. For the selection, we will follow the processes currently underway for the Community Grant Committee member selection.
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We propose the selected community lead and three elected grant reviewers with the highest vote counts in the selection process, alongside one IF representative, become the Shimmer Growth Committee.
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These members will enter into service provider contracts with the Tangle Ecosystem Association.
The Shimmer Growth Committee will identify high-impact growth proposals and engage in those opportunities with the key players in the DLT space. The IF will prepare specific proposals to use the funds committed to the Shimmer Growth Committee, and the committee will vote on whether to act on these measures. -
All proposals that do not require NDA clearance will be made public, with expenditures to be publicly released without disclosing the protected specifics of these agreements.
The Committee
After the committee has been voted in, the community will permit the transferal of 35% of the current community treasury (~63,476,718 $SMR) to a unique wallet address under the control of the Tangle Ecosystem Association, to be available for the purposes of the Shimmer Growth Committee.
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Every member of the committee will have one vote on every proposal.
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A majority consensus (3 of 5 votes) must be achieved to approve or decline a proposal.
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In the event of absence, or an abstained vote that leads to a tie (2 for, 2 against) the proposal will be declined, requiring a majority 3 out of 4 votes for approval.
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Both the TEA and the Committee members may present proposals for consideration.
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The TEA as an entity has ZERO voting or veto rights.
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The TEA will commit to a contract with the community committee members that ensures they may not make use of or transfer any of the funds from the Shimmer Growth Committee Treasury without a confirmed vote in writing signed by at least three committee members.
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The Shimmer Growth Committee will discuss all proposals in regularly defined meetings as outlined by, and coordinated by, the committee lead.
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Every committee member will sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement outlining the specific NDA terms of disclosure pertaining to certain funding proposals.
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Community delegates will be compensated for their work at a rate of $50 USD an hour with no more than 10 hours a week to be recorded per committee member.
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The Committee will pay renumerations to community members from the Shimmer Growth Committee funds on a monthly basis via invoice, to be distributed in stable coin.
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The TEA will pay all compensations for their committee representative out of TEA funds.
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The initial term for the Shimmer Growth Committee is 12 months, any proposed extension of this period will result in a community vote.
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Any tokens remaining in the Shimmer Growth Committee Fund at the end of the 12-month period will be immediately redistributed to the Community Treasury Fund.
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Under no circumstance will the IOTA Foundation or Tangle Ecosystem Association make use of or apply for the use of the Growth Committee funds.
Allocations
The aim of the funding is to support expansion and awareness of the Shimmer ecosystem and to gain further exposure for the Shimmer token and technology.
Primary allocations will focus on:
- Marketing
- Exchange listings
- Public education surrounding shimmer
- Partnerships
- PR
Recording of proposals and expenditure
There are simple transparency processes that can be implemented to ensure all activities are clearly communicated to the community. A simple vote recording system can be shared after each meeting along with any minutes that do not disclose sensitive information.
Information included for transparency:
- Vote number – a unique identifier for the vote in succession to all other votes, starting at V0001 and progressing sequentially.
- Category – the topic of the proposal, such as marketing, promotions, partners, listings, etc.
- Value – the value of the proposal in USD
- For – total number of committee member votes for the proposal
- Against – total number of committee member votes against the proposal
- Outcome – either approved or disapproved
A basic vote record would be added to the public minutes shared in the community governance forum to contain the following (note: none of this transparency information would normally interfere with an NDA agreement):
| Vote number | Category | Value ($USD) | For | Against | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V0001 | Marketing | 50,000 | 3 | 2 | Approved |
| V0002 | Listings | 75,000 | 2 | 3 | Declined |
Rationale
The suggested Shimmer Growth Committee idea was born by Dominik Schiener to support the need of establishing an efficient and professionally managed growth strategy for the Shimmer ecosystem.(current proposal can be found here)
This proposal supports the vision of the original initiative yet builds upon the concept of providing a more community focused initiative that can better support the concerns and interests of the community treasury for long term sustainability.
The counter proposal presented here expands upon the professional establishment and support the IF can provide the community from the TEA, their network, and expertise, whilst also presenting the community with more control and transparency in the decision making for the initiative.
Having members of the community working alongside the IF and observing the ins and outs of the business side of things will still present a great opportunity in developing the community grant committee members with experience that can be used to improve and develop the Community Grant Proposal system.
We are confident the community will support this proposal as it builds upon the original proposal with a more community focused arrangement with long-term vision.
Implementation
The following measures need to be taken:
- The community need to determine the five members of the Community Grant Committee in a vote on Firefly
- The final vote will proceed on the release of Firefly Shimmer that supports Governance Votes
- The elected committee lead, and the three top committee reviewers will sign contracts with the Tangle Ecosystem Association
- Constitutional first meeting of the Shimmer Growth Committee, where processes will be defined
Vote Name, question and answers, and optionally additional information
Name:
Counter Proposal [SGP - 0003] Shimmer Growth Committee as part of the Tangle Ecosystem Association
Question:
Do you support the setup of a more community focused Shimmer Growth Committee as part of the Tangle Ecosystem Association?
Answer 1:
• Yes, I support the setup of a more community focused Shimmer Growth CommitteeAnswer 2:
• No
Additional info:
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Read the full proposal (link to the proposal)
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Read Dom’s original proposal [SGP - 0003] Shimmer Growth Committee as part of the Tangle Ecosystem Association (link to the proposal)
Participation event of the proposal
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