We really appreciate the swift and detailed responses - thank you. Your comments are very helpful, and it’s great that DeSciWorld has an open mind to some additions that can help to secure the value for Gnosis, like convertible grants and close involvement from Gnosis contributors.
For us, there are still a few flags here which leave us with doubts:
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The total value handled to date is an order of magnitude less than what is being asked for. It’s hard to have confidence that there are that many high quality projects out there looking for Web 3.0 funding that DeSciWorld can bring to Gnosis Chain in the course of the next few months.
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The cited “most successful” DeSciWorld projects so far are all DeSci events, rather than core scientific research and discovery, or the “foundational tools” described in the initial post. Though events are very important, there seems to be a wide gap between what’s been done to date and what’s being proposed for imminent action, which makes us doubt the feasibility of what’s being proposed. If there are candidate projects already in mind, it may be helpful to see details at this stage where possible.
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The best credentials to date being the trust shown so far and experience with early stage projects and founders. Given the relatively low value and narrow direction to date shared in the previous post, we don’t attach a huge amount of weight to these credentials. Without more detail and testimonials, it’s hard to see this as more than a “trust me, bro”. But we would be keen to review more supporting information, if it’s available.
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Likewise, the written confirmation of operating the programme “to high standards throughout using best industry practices” sounds nice, but again amounts to little more than a “trust me, bro”.
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The belief that incentive alignment will emerge as a result of network effects feel hopeful. Network effects by their very nature start at zero and are very weak at first, but get exponentially stronger as they scale . Long term, this effect could be plausible. But in the window of a few months, we’re doubtful that a sufficient network will form across 3-6 grants to retain those efforts after the funding dries up. If I were a rival Web 3.0 ecosystem with grant money to spend, I wouldn’t hesitate to go after DeSci projects that were seeded by Gnosis. We’ve seen similar elsewhere in the industry, like with zkSync poaching Treasure DAO and Lens.
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The appeals to “time is of the essence” and “if we wait… it might not be as optimal” feel a bit like pressure selling and panic investing. We agree that if Gnosis wants to establish an early lead in DeSci that there is no time like the present to get started. But we don’t think that panic or FOMO are ever a sound basis for sound funding or investing decisions. And, if Gnosis is to step up involvement in DeSci, there needs to be discussions about allocating resources internally to support a program like this over the long term, and that all takes time.
Putting aside the specific details of this proposal, we also have a recent scathing criticism of DeSci from Tarun Chitra burning in our ears. In essence, he complains that most DeSci projects today come from low quality applicants who have struggled to receive funding elsewhere, and hope to appeal to the mindless-but-fast money in Web 3.0 to progress their own careers. Though we don’t take that view firmly here, we’re mindful of the risk with this proposal. At present, there’s not enough information to say definitively that this initiative can find and support high-quality projects (or to rule out it being a ploy for mindless-but-fast money).
Finally, we should say that we’re not completely against this proposal, but feel at the present time that the available information isn’t sufficiently persuasive for us to vote in favour. We’re open to receiving more information to consider, and mean no disrespect with our critical feedback. We would also love to see DeSci flourish within the Gnosis Ecosystem for the right reasons!