GIP-128 Should GnosisDAO fund Gnosis Ltd with $30m/ year?

[lefterisjp]

Thank you for this post @ernst.

The positive things here are:

• The unified brand identity
• Trying to change the narrative and showcase that it’s all about Gnosis and the GNO token.

The negatives:

• I still think Gnosis is trying to do way too many things. Retail payments, business payments accounts, UBI, retail wallet, AI agens and more. This shows a lack of focus, and when you are trying to do everything many times you end up doing nothing.
• The budget is quite heavy. $30m for a year and with plans to increase personnel by 20% it means we are going to expect an even heavier budget next year. Isn’t that too much? Other have mentioned, but shouldn’t you premptively think on how to reduce inefficiencies and have a tighter budget?
• The budget is not details enough in some categories. I would like to see more detailed breakdown, like how many FTEs are employed for each category, avg salaries, more detailed breakdown of expenses in each category etc.

Some first questions on the budget:

1. What is Open Internet Clubs?
2. Can you please do a breakdown of the $2.5m for integrations?
3. What is Legal /Personnel and why is it ~2.5x the normal personnerl?
4. What is Managenent M/SF? Is this the founder’s compensation and stands for Martin, Stefan and Friederike? Is that on top of the normal salaries the founders are getting on that upcoming year? I would assume the founders are very strongly exposed to GNO and as such the success of this plan alone would be an amazing financial reward.

[Louk]

Stake Capital supports this proposal. This budget seems aligned with the challenges ahead for Gnosis.

[ernst]

Thanks, CryotosNF!

@CryptosNF

However, I have questions about GNO future. Projects like Safe and CoW Swap become independent, which is a strength, but GNO’s utility is limited to staking and governance. How can we enhance its value and role?

1. How can GNO directly benefit from the success of ecosystem projects?
2. Can we create new use cases or incentives to make GNO more attractive?
3. How can we position GNO as a central and dynamic asset?

Gnosis excels in innovation, but how can we translate this into value for GNO holders? I’d love to hear the community’s and Gnosis Ltd’s thoughts on this!

The DAO can distribute profits that accumulate in the DAO to token holders, this would be a simple DAO vote. The problem is that so far, the DAO undertakings have not been profitable. So I would reframe the question to: How can we deliver services that will accrue value to the DAO? The repackaging of Gnosis as an onchain cooperative bank is our strategy for this.

The second point I would like to add is that token distribution matters. The GNO holder cashback program was a great success in my eyes because it drove users of our products also to be token holders. We will double down on these dynamics.

[ernst]

@Sam_Trust

1. I understand that the profits generated by the various projects/entities (Pay, Metri, GC, Circles) are meant to flow back to GNO holders. However, if I’m following correctly, it isn’t currently possible to distribute those profits directly. What mechanism would channel profits from each entity to GNO holders or at least to the Gnosis DAO? Would this be done through GNO buybacks, for example? Unfortunately, there is no smart contract in place to verify or enforce such a mechanism for the DAO.
2. How will these values be captured by kpk’s monthly reports? Are the treasuries primary on-chain?

If the operation becomes profitable and money flows back to the DAO, it’s the DAO’s prerogative what to do with these profits. It could simply pay them out to token holders as a dividend. It could do GNO buybacks instead. It could reinvest these profits – or a combination of all three. This is a discussion that the DAO needs to have when the time comes.

I understand your concern about the lack of transparency regarding product profitability. I will make sure we capture this well in the quarterly reports.

[ernst]

@mrtdlgc

The amount requested for expenditures for the following year can only make sense if we have a clear picture on revenue as well. For instance, the highest amount of funding from this $30m ask will apparently go to Gnosis Pay, and Gnosis Pay is projected to have around $1m in revenue. Is there any projection/foresight on where the constituents of Gnosis LTD will turn into self-sustaining entities?

There are, particularly for Gnosis Pay, since it has been operational for a while. I didn’t share them here because I cannot promise them. As they say, predictions are often uncertain, especially if they are about the future – so you have been cautioned! We’re projecting 103k cards by the end of this year and 641k cards by the end of 2026. These are not crazy numbers, they are achievable. In this scenario, revenue for 2025 is 1m, and revenue for 2026 is 7.8m. Costs will also rise, but (obviously) more slowly than revenue.

@mrtdlgc

Or in case some of the constituents causing the leakage of value from the treasury with little to no hope of becoming profitable, would these initiatives be considered as leakage and cut down from the expenses? How can these decisions be made around each entity under the umbrella of Gnosis LTD? Or to what extent the voice of the DAO will be heard and implemented over what to invest in and what not?

We will evaluate projects based on profitability. Things that are not profitable/ are not likely to become profitable and are not necessary for strategic reasons (making them loss leaders), will be cut. We will supply P&L statements for each arm individually to make this transparent. This is the level of abstraction where I think the DAO can excel.

I hear the clear call for clear and expressive quarterly reports. We will do our best to deliver these and iterate over them with the DAO’s feedback.

[Ignas]

As a user, I already use Gnosis more frequently than any other chain

For example, Europeans like me can use the self-custodial GnosisPay card with Monerium’s EURe stablecoin.

We can also cash out EURe directly to fiat EUR via Monerium.

Gnosis for me are crypto OGs, started in 2016 as a prediction market protocol.

So Gnosis Ltd remains the core of all development behind nearly the entire Gnosis stack, including Gnosis Chain, Gnosis Pay, Circles, Gnosis Wallet (formerly Metri), and more.

But Gnosis is not alone in pursuing the ConsumerFi mission: Recently Etherfi has expanded into the territory of Gnosis as well as Mantle is pushing towards crypto x banking area.

So, competition is heating up.

In this context, without funding, Gnosis Ltd may not be able to sustain operations at the current scale, which would directly impact the stability, progress, and user experience across many real life use cases built on Gnosis.

I like the move to unify products under the Gnosis brand will help strengthen identity.

Also echoing @lefterisjp:

@lefterisjp

I still think Gnosis is trying to do way too many things. Retail payments, business payments accounts, UBI, retail wallet, AI agens and more. This shows a lack of focus, and when you are trying to do everything many times you end up doing nothing.

Perhaps the DAO could consider finding partners for certain services, maybe in infrastructure or marketing, to reduce costs and improve operational focus.

And I run PinkBrains, a Creator Studio focused on elevating quality web3 projects through authentic representation. Always open to collaborating, especially on user education and brand awareness efforts around Gnosis and its ecosystem.

A soft shill for us, but that’s because I care about Gnosis succeeding. Truly.

[ernst]

@lefterisjp

1. What is Open Internet Clubs?

The open internet club is a new grassroots initative for nurturing the builder ecosystem on Gnosis. It is about to kick off. I’m linking our internal doc here.

@lefterisjp

2. Can you please do a breakdown of the $2.5m for integrations?

This is a budget and entails integration fees for exchanges (we don’t pay for listings and never have, but we do pay for Gnosis Chain integrations), onramp integrations and stable coin deployments. All of these are to ensure that operating on Gnosis is not painful.

@lefterisjp

3. What is Legal /Personnel and why is it ~2.5x the normal personnerl?

“Personnel” is just the header for our people costs in these various departments. We have a relatively large in house legal team (six people) because we operate in murky waters and making sure we can deliver good ux without anyone being prosecuted is a good north star metric .

@lefterisjp

4. What is Managenent M/SF? Is this the founder’s compensation and stands for Martin, Stefan and Friederike? Is that on top of the normal salaries the founders are getting on that upcoming year? I would assume the founders are very strongly exposed to GNO and as such the success of this plan alone would be an amazing financial reward.

Yes, these are our salaries, it’s not on top of anything. We received a GNO allocation in the token sale eight years ago, so we’re all long GNO; however, I believe paying us a salary is fair nonetheless. I listed these salaries separately because we all work across the products.

[paul2]

The momentum Gnosis has had with its core products in the last year has been fantastic. Very happy to see this roadmap and the additional investment going towards a cohesive story for the network.

I especially appreciate the comments in this thread from @Sam_Trust @staworth and @ernst, which are super helpful.

One thing that strikes me as worth diving into:

One of the core contradictions of the Gnosis Chain ecosystem is the exceptional level of resilience the network has achieved at the protocol level, yet the activity built on top of the network is consolidated into very few single points of failure.

From Gnosis Ltd.'s perspective, I do think this is the right strategy - making bets on just a few products/categories and investing heavily in them gives them the best chance to succeed and drive more value to GNO holders. @lefterisjp even mentions it might be too much activity, which maybe it is.

But at the ecosystem level, there’s very little diversity in Gnosis Chain’s activity - especially compared to other networks with similar TVL. Of course, this could be Gnosis Chain’s competitive advantage - that it’s NOT trying to do too much, not spreading itself too thin. But this strategy seems most effective from within 1 specific organization, and that the ecosystem beyond it should be working to reduce its dependence on Gnosis Ltd. (and Karpatkey) for the health of the network.

As a delegate, my ask for the DAO outside this proposal is that we work towards some basic investments and infrastructure to invite more diversity onto Gnosis Chain.

Gnosis Chain already has nation-state level resilience at the protocol level, so it’d be a waste not to reach nation-state level resilience at the ecosystem level too.

-Paul from Gardens

[refri]

like to throw into this also my 5ct:

1.) I don’t have any doubt the proposal will pass cause to my guess majority of voting power is still in the hands of few, including ltd members/owners

2.) as someone who isn’t a crypto native, just an interested user that found the way here due to the xDAI/Gnosis merger (or takeover), I miss the easy way to get informed about important decisions I was used to when joining the xDAI project where it was enough to follow one telegram chat to felt updated. Ofc Gnosis is much larger and the different entities within the gnosis ecosystem have their own communication culture and channels… but IMO gnosis ltd, as the most important entity should provide much more info whats going on in time (not only if GIPs are to be done).

3.) Posts/proposals from ppl outside the gnosis ecosystem here often lack comments and voting participation from major holders. IMO most likely from gnosis ltd members, I can’t prove it, but it feels like a despise of the DAO and this forum.

4.) I fully agree that funding of gnosis ltd is necessary, and I will support. I don’t have the ability to judge if the amount is reasonable. As others pointed out there could be some more details but even if these data were given I might not be able to judge about this.

5. Feeling and acting as part of the DAO and therefore be much more present on this forum (if it should be the main DAO communication channel) seems most important to me to unify the gnosis projects led by the ltd.
   btw: this also holds true for @Karpatkey, monthly reports might not be enough if some issues (like the one addressed in GIP 127) arise.

In summary: This proposal will pass (most likely will vote for it myself). I remain in hope for more participation of ltd’s owners/employees here to give outsiders the feel of getting informed in time and also let ppl from outside the gnosis ecosystem that are posting here get noticed by the major holders with their ideas.

[john_szczepaniak]

I want to express appreciation for the work Gnosis Ltd and the DAO have put into building a resilient and visionary ecosystem. It takes persistence and a lot of very hard work. Gnosis has consistently proven that they are a dedicated, principled team working on an ambitious roadmap aimed at improving the digital well-being of everyday people.

I hope that we can continue to prioritize and create deeper token integration — whether through more GNO-based rebates, fee discounts, staking incentives, or structuring product earnings to flow (at least in part) to the DAO with a clear path to benefit GNO holders.

With the unification of the Gnosis brand, this is the perfect moment to unify the token as well. Let’s make GNO not just a governance token, but a core utility in the ecosystem’s long-term success!

[refri]

@john_szczepaniak

I want to express appreciation for the work Gnosis Ltd and the DAO have put into building a resilient and visionary ecosystem. It takes persistence and a lot of very hard work.

Totally agree on this. But assuming you are one of the 127 team members its obvious you (have to) say this. Imho gnosis needs to get ppl from outside the inner circle to participate, and this also means give ppl attention here if they are not already part of the gnosis team.
Removing my admin rights from the gnosis chain telegram channel (which I had from xDAI times) without talking to me about this, leaves me with the impression there is not much trust in ppl that are not on the payroll of gnosis.
I am in hope this will change with a unified gnosis ecosystem.

[henry]

Very interesting proposal. As a long-time GNO holder, I’m happy to see the Gnosis team steadily pushing things forward, again and again.

I’m especially excited about the idea of renaming Metri to Gnosis and bringing multiple products together under one brand and interface. It makes it much clearer what “Gnosis” is for users.

Gnosis’ positioning has changed over the years, but I think that’s a good thing — it shows the team is always thinking, improving, and building things that matter. That’s not something you see often in crypto, especially over such a long period of time.

I’ve also always felt that GnosisDAO is one of the more forward-thinking DAOs. I’m looking forward to seeing how this new funding setup helps Gnosis grow into a sustainable and self-running decentralized system.

[espina]

Gnosis Guild is in support of this proposal and we’re looking forward to the product-focused roadmap. The unification of products under one Gnosis brand makes total sense and the budget is reasonable in proportion to the treasury size and personnel. Gnosis Ltd has proven its ability to execute on these various offerings and we expect this funding will expand that capacity.

It’s critical for Gnosis to have a core team driving growth and development, though there’s also some risk that this leads to more centralization. We hope that in parallel with this initiative, this can spark further investment into the ecosystem and other aligned teams servicing the DAO, along with the active involvement of governance.

[john_szczepaniak]

You’re very much a valuable long-term community member @refri . I apologize about the Gnosis Chain TG. It was a community-run TG and we took over as admins for OpSec concerns to ensure that the community is protected against scams. This is good feedback and I will personally do my best to include community members when important decisions like this are being made. Thanks again for all of your contributions.

[refri]

thanks, all fine…imo communication is the way a unified gnosis brand has to go to grow. Hopefully a place will be found where all relevant info is available and all relevant participants feel home, no matter if its from Gnosis DAO, Gnosis Ltd, Karpatkey (for those topics affecting gc ecosystem) and all other aligned entities…for sure this would have the capacity to attract others to join and use the gnosis ecosystem.

btw: this, from a page I usually don’t visit, was brought to my attention and I wonder why it wasn’t communicated in any of the gnosis channels I usually follow.

[gramajo]

Will be voting in favor. For context for some folks, I historically have managed a budget for a department of around 50-100 people for a global company and our budget was around 24m-30m a year so based on 120+ employees this doesn’t seem out of line in my personal experience. Glad to see a high focus on bringing legal costs internal vs just outsourcing to law firms which can get crazy expensive.

My only comments and this is just me being weedy are, Gnosis pay really need to come to the USA, culturally we love our cards and competing here is key long term (although Brasil has been a success). HQ needs to be marketed hard towards other DAOs or other types of online groups that may not fit the traditional “business” that we are used to in web2. Happy to start seeing the breakdown of costs on a quarterly basis.

[Viszla]

Glad to see all the good discussion here. I agree with those saying, essentially, that the DAO either approves this or executes an enormous pivot that isnt justified at this time. My basic view is that the only way for Gnosis the ecosystem and token to win is to trust in our leaders, then watch carefully to make sure it is deserved. Martin, Freiderike, and Stefan have near-perfect incentive alignment with GNO token holders and are taking the (extremely reasonable) salary of 150k. I love that. Unfortunately, the DAO wont ever be able to go line by line through expenses etc and offer anything of real value. We are in the position of board of directors. So far, our executive team is doing well (GNO price notwithstanding, but no fault to them) so I will be voting yes here and trusting that the Gnosis Ltd team is being smart stewards of capital.

My one add on here would be – to the extent that the Gnosis Ltd team would consider bringing the 5k delegates “under the tent” and allowing us to see all of the inner workings, I would LOVE that. In that way, some of us with experience running teams (@lefterisjp jumps to mind as having valuable experience) could offer some specific help, advice, etc. It would also perhaps quiet some DAO commentary that Ltd is a bit of a “black box.” I assume most of the 5k delegates would be happy to sign NDAs to keep the lawyers happy.

[john_szczepaniak]

Are you subscribed to our newsletter? Definitely worth it if you want to stay on top of ecosystem updates etc 🦉Gnosis Weekly Recap ~ 18 July 2025

[refri]

thx, sure…enjoy to read it! Regarding the topic I posted: the Weekly recap reached me a day afterwards.

[lefterisjp]

I voted for the proposal.

As I mentioned both here and in the Q&A call would want to see detailed reporting and breakdown of costs, but in general I believe that going ahead with this is a good thing for the DAO and I am looking forward to see what will the results of this funding be in a year from now.