Our Vote
We will be voting in favour.
Realistically, we see no reasonable alternative: failing to fund and support Gnosis Ltd risks damaging Gnosis’ core and ongoing efforts. There are (and must be) significant asymmetry of information here… GNO holders can’t make informed decisions on budgeting without detailed information about Gnosis Ltd’s internal operations… but Gnosis Ltd can’t develop cutting-edge products if it’s forced into public disclosures about the bets it’s planning to justify its budget.
We could haggle and debate to achieve some other compromise, without really knowing if that’s likely to be better or worse for Gnosis overall. But really I don’t think we want the budget of Gnosis Ltd to be tightly controlled and altered by the DAO… the team has done great things without that level of oversight, and there is nothing to suggest that the DAO can add value here.
Ultimately, this comes down to trust… and we trust Gnosis Ltd.
Questions
However, we think this is the perfect opportunity to raise some foundational questions, to explore what this dynamic means for the DAO and GNO holders at time of this proposal.
We’d love to hear from @ernst and others in Ltd’s senior leadership team on a few questions set out below. We won’t be disappointed if any can’t or won’t be answered, but we see this as a great opportunity for information sharing and setting the tone for the DAO’s role and work moving forwards.
- As @Sam_Trust mentions above, we’d like to know how you see value creation accruing to GNO. Will profits from Gnosis Ltd’s activities flow back to the DAO? Or do the assets generated by Gnosis Ltd’s work belong to or remain held for the benefit of the DAO? Or maybe do you expect that Gnosis Ltd’s activities will lead to future inflows from third parties to the DAO (like how token distributions from spinoffs have previously grown the DAO’s treasury)?
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This fact has a few interesting connotations for the formal relationship between the DAO and Gnosis Ltd:
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Typically, these companies have members but not shareholders. Is the DAO a member of Gnosis Ltd? And can it be disclosed who (if any) the other members of Gnosis Ltd are?
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Do any of the company’s foundational documents (e.g. articles of association) enshrine a role for the DAO? For instance, the articles could require that any surplus assets upon the unwinding of Gnosis Ltd must be sent to the DAO.
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Where neither of the above questions confirm any formal role for the DAO in Gnosis Ltd, is there anywhere else in the company’s formal arrangements where the DAO is given an explicit role? And if not, then who or what in a legal sense are the ultimate beneficiaries of the company activities?
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Is it possible to publish or share a summary of the company’s foundational documents?
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Will the DAO be given any insights into Gnosis Ltd’s revenues, profitability or balance sheet?
- On a first glance, readers might expect that the $30M of funding represents Ltd’s full annual spending. However, it’s possible that further spending (or saving/earnings retention) may be taking place beyond the DAO’s funding, driven by revenues or the existing assets of Ltd. We would love to see the proposed quarterly reports be as comprehensive on the financials of Ltd as you reasonably can be!
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Do you have a view of what a “DAO review of outcomes” may look like at the end of this 12-month proposal?
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In an ideal world, we’d like a review process to be defined at the offset, so that it flows through the funding period. The worst scenario for a review would be if the definition of a process is left to the end of the 12-month period (when more funding is then required in short order), and must then be dealt with hastily.
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Personally, we’d love to see the DAO elect a small review committee directly after this proposal that would meet with Ltd throughout the year, give feedback on the quarterly reports and ultimately deliver their own annual review report assessing Ltd’s progress against the requested funding.
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Thanks in advance for all responses 