GIP-131: Should Gnosis DAO continue and update the Gnosis Pay Cashback Programme?

From what has been posted on Discord and the forum so far, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that a loud group of people are just interested in getting as much cashback value for themselves as possible and prefer to engage in cashback hopping rather than a sustainable product. Cashback is also important to me, I won’t deny that, but I also want the product to survive and to be sustainable. GP is a product that can help the Gnosis Ecosystem as a whole. There has to be a balance.

Therefore a stricter CAP is definetly needed for fairer distribution and longevity. High spenders (the proposal suggests that GP has already identified high spenders and has a clear idea of what high spenders are) do not add value in the long term, as they extract too much value in too short a time and hinder the growth and thus the potential success of GP.

Otherwise, GP is transforming in a Plutus 2.0, CDC 2.0, whatever product, and what’s the point of that? Then the DAO should not provide any further funds and GP should be discontinued.

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Linking weekly eligible spend to GNO holdings via a logarithmic scaling formula

Just a drive-by remark to observe that it is not logarithmic.

The proposed cashback rate is logarithmic in stake until 100 GNO, above which it goes nuts. The max eligible spend is all over the place except between 1 and 10 GNO staked.

Thats all!

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What’s missing here is a clear plan on how gnosis pay plan to monetise its users, until then every every single cent in cashback is unstainable by definition.
In this context, kicking out legit high spender user, which are seen as extremely high value users in every other financial business, is completely retarded

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But to not want to keep the “big spenders” shows a complete lack of understanding of how this kind of business works. Who do you think GnosisPay is going to sell its services to? The person who spends €100 a month? Or the European who spends > €2000?

You talk about sustainability, but what a joke! Can we analyze the DAO’s last 10 spending? Between the exorbitant fees for fund management that underperformed the risk-free rate, the millions spent on products that have NEVER worked in the history of crypto like Metri/Circles, products in ultra-saturated markets that have almost no chance of taking off on GnosisChain (like AI or on-chain stocks), and the strange governance initiatives via online betting while we only get one post a year on the forum from HQ.

Europe is slowly sliding towards a stricter regime; we no longer have time to play around with hollow concepts that only appeal to crypto-natives and nerds like you and me.
It’s time for GnosisDAO to decide if it wants to build products for the general public or just make cool stuff to show off at ETH Dublin between two €7 smoothies.

I’ll say it one last time, GnosisPay only needs three things:

  • MARKETING, whether it’s ads or incentive campaigns, targeting each country to capture its market. I’ll give just one example because I live there: in Belgium, we currently have ZERO alternatives to GnosisPay. Our savings accounts yield <1%/year after fees, our banks charge over €100 in fees per year, they’ll freeze our accounts for a single €10 unverified expense, and don’t even get me started on what happens if you’re involved with crypto… WHY doesn’t Gnosis have someone working full-time to capture the Belgian market? Same for France, which I know a bit about; they have a huge crypto community, why aren’t they working with legislators to have a turnkey, tax-compliant solution? GnosisPay would already be in everyone’s pocket if that were the case!

  • An app. That’s the main point. You need an app on par with banking apps. No trust network with innovative monetary creation blah blah blah, just an app that lets me save, spend, and pay my bills in one click. AND THAT’S IT. This app is also how you can extract value if you really want to make this thing profitable.

  • Liquidity. Sorry, but you should fire your market maker(s). They’re doing a terrible job; the liquidity is horrible for almost every token related to Gnosis. And we’re paying for this…

We should be discussing doubling or tripling the GnosisPay budget, not cutting costs.

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250 usd in eur is 211 eur. Monthly 844 eur. If this goes through I’m out. Too low. Should be at least 2500 eur per month. My logic is that with this prices of food and everything else 844 eur even for the average user isn’t enough. Maybe in Africa

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I hear your criticisms about the DAO’s spending, but I think some of them are bit an overreaction. For projects and initiatives that are still in the early stages, going from zero to one, these harsh criticisms feel pretty premature I’d say. The Circles V2 announcement was made three months ago, and all the pieces are just now coming together. Circles is taking its strategic position as a project funded by the Gnosis Ltd that will play an important role within the Gnosis app. It’s worth remembering a few key points:

  • A strategic plan for the Gnosis App has been announced. This is the app you’re talking about, and you can find the details here.
  • The international expansion and market analysis you mentioned for the Eurozone are already happening for LATAM and SEA. Gnosis Pay is expanding into LATAM (it’s launched in Brazil and will be coming to Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia next), and Gnosis HQ is expanding into Southeast Asia. In my opinion, having a dual approach—expanding in Europe while also focusing on these other regions—is the smartest way to go. But overall you can clearly see the direction they are headed.

The Belgium example you brought up is about this question: Is one user who pays 10m as good as 1m users who pay 10 usd each? It’s pretty old-aged question and completely related product roadmap.

After considering all the comments you’ve mentioned, I think the real issue is that the DAO doesn’t have the necessary transparency and updates from the Gnosis Pay team regarding their strategy and plans. It’s pretty clear there’s room for improvement there. I believe we’ll have a much more productive feedback mechanism once the community is kept in the loop and can share their comments with all the right information.

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Alright, it is just surprising that everyone takes it for granted that Gnosis Pay has to offer any kind of cashback, subsidized by the DAO treasury.

Let me chime in from a different angle, then.

  1. Does Gnosis Pay have any kind of connection to the DAO other than being affiliated with Gnosis LTD, not even contractually, but by extension of influence?
  2. Has Gnosis Pay offered any kind of accountability to the DAO so far?
  3. Why should the DAO keep subsidizing an entity with zero transparency since its inception to the DAO?
  4. What is really the benefit of Gnosis Pay to the DAO other than having “Gnosis” in its branding and settling transactions (subsidized by the LTD) on Gnosis Chain?
  5. Is Gnosis Pay even aligned with the core values of Gnosis (censorship resistance, credible neutrality, and openness to name a few)?

Sorry, until any kind of accountability and transparency is provided from Gnosis Pay, I do not support throwing more money for the growth efforts of an independent entity with offices in London and Lisbon with no transparency.

If Gnosis Pay is going to come to the DAO now and then to ask for money without providing any insight into why the DAO should keep throwing money into the pit, when is this going to stop and the entity will become sustainable on its own?

In the recent proposal that passed for funding the operations of Gnosis LTD, there was already an allocation of $8m for a year. Gnosis Pay can go on providing a cashback from that budget if they wish. Otherwise, unless they act responsible enough to be accountable to the DAO, I will be voting against any proposal coming from Gnosis Pay that asks for any more subsidy from the DAO treasury.

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very good point…as today confirmed in the GNOciety telegram a DAO vote isn’t necessary to change the reward system, this is only about funding.

Although I agree with the changes in cashback structure outlined here cause it has to be sustainable it don’t make much sense to write a proposal suggesting the DAO has a say on this if this isn’t really the case and all words just written to apply for funding.

Cause there might be some urgency to replete the cashback pool I will vote for any reasonable amount irrespective of the way it will be used. I will do in blind trust if it goes along with the promise to involve the DAO earlier in relevant decisions in the future and clearly separate these from pure funding proposals.

I didn’t know GnosisPay wasn’t linked to Gnosis.
So yes, I agree with you, we shouldn’t be funding the user acquisition strategy for a company with no ties to Gnosis.

I am very disappointed in Gnosis, disappointed because I expected more from a player like Gnosis. I was sincerely hoping to see a European player emerge that could be a counterweight to the American giants.

Have fun, but personally, my commitment to your ecosystem ends today.

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For what is the vote for? To continue the cashback programme or to accept the proposed cashback programme?

Because for me I understand it as having a continuation of the cashback programme in general (not to stop it).

It sounds for me like “This or nothing”. It could be misleading.

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Totally agree with that

No one will lock up 1000gno…this is just absurd

Anything above 20gno lock should be removed from proposal

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Gnosis Pay is not some sort of charity, why the hell are we giving away so much GNO. If people are just using it for cashback then it is not a good product. How many users would actually use it if lower cashback? It is a failure imo

Keep the current cashback system and just disincentives selling by introducing a 1 week cooldown from cashback for each GNO withdrawn from the safe

Exactly that. People got hooked with cashback and now you can’t get out of it. They want to continue to extract massive value from the cashback. It’s like a drug.

The team still wants to figure it out for themselves, but it’s actually pretty obvious that we’re going to see a hard drop in transaction volume in the next few weeks without cashback.

There are only 2 ways out. Make the product good enough with features that brings enough value without cashback or come up with a sustainable cashback system so that people keep getting their drug without killing your product.

The current proposal suggests that the team currently has no ideas for either.

I think the proposal is overall structured in good faith, but it’s not any step closer to being more ‘sustainable’

A sustainable cashback is probably less than 2.5-3%, and we need to look into the fixed and varying cost for the card business and how many users & spending is required for this to stop burning cash for the company. We need more info on this, and a clearer strategy on how we can get closer to it.

If not, just halving the cashback rate for everyone would make this more sustainable and give more time for finding more viable solution without introducing unnecessary complexity. 2500 GNO with around 200GNO would give ~12.5 weeks where a better cashback mechanism can be studied and introduced.

It’s quite baffling why the proposal is only push out in the last week when the reserve is almost depleted. we need to be more forward looking and plan more in advance

Aside from that, a monthly limit and average monthly holding would make more sense. And maybe we can consider burning of GNO token as optional alternative (but smaller amount) instead of just staking too

The cashback programme launched under GIP-110 successfully boosted Gnosis Pay adoption, but analysis showed:

  • A small number of users made disproportionately high spending to maximise cashback (“gaming” behaviour)
  • A large share of rewards went to these outliers, reducing fairness and ROI.

Can we see the analysis on this? might reach different conclusion if it’s seen by different eyes, or it would be more convincing to get yes votes on this

My 2 cents:

the vote proposal should have had a third option “Yes, but with to some adjustment”.

Going forward with the cashback program is ok (so “yes”) bu the weekly limit is too low (so “no”) like someone said. I fear that many, if this proposal pass like this, will abandon the ship.

Well said. The vote options, are not quite clear. Seems this or nothing, but should not be open to discussion ?

The real waste of money would be half-assing gnosis-pay right now.
We’re in the midst of a card war (check yourself Top Rated Crypto Cards) with stablecoins and payments being the super hot thing in crypto right now.
So either gnosis decide to fight this very expensive war and deploy a significant chunk of the treasury, or it should give up completely on incentives and focus on kumbaya-tech if that is the true future of gnosis chain

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Honestly, if people are only going to keep using it for free GNO then they do not like the product.

Stop cashback for a month and see how many stick around for the “cool” tech. Then we will know what people really think

We don’t fix program by adding useless cooldown