GIP-150: Should GnosisDAO let GNO holders redeem their pro-rata share of the treasury?

[0x6f2]

@Kenk

Separately, Gnosis Ltd will be sharing more detail on the direction the team has been working towards and expanding on GNO’s role in the centre of the ecosystem, all of which started before GIP-150 was introduced.

And you’ll be offering people who do not buy into this vision a chance to exit? Or what? Just imposing it in the face of a huge amount of dissatisfied GNO, ignoring that these holders vehemently reject your continued spending on yet more pivots. If you fail to give people that choice, then there will just be more proposals to follow that seek to remedy the problem.

’Sell on the market’ is a totally unsatisfactory response when liquidity has been removed by Ltd, by the way.

You dance around the problem, but offer zero solutions to the root issue here. A reminder - you are being paid from the treasury and have produced very little return on that, you are just as biased as you make GNO holders out to be. Continuing to dress this up as extraction without acknowledging that Ltd’s performance has caused this rift (and is equally able to be framed as extraction of a different kind) only serves to escalate the conflict. It’s not going away just because you want it to - the naivety and arrogance of this view is off the charts.

[kelvin]

For anyone tracking this proposal: we’ve just created an active futarchy market on it at futarchy.fi, with about 200k USD of total liquidity.

Current conditional pool prices (sDAI per GNO): YES (pass): 105.83, - NO (reject): 105.53

Both sides are currently trading below the proposal’s worked-example per-GNO NAV at snapshot.

The TWAP window opens 2026-05-09 17:34 UTC and closes 2026-05-11 17:34 UTC, ahead of the Snapshot vote close on May 12, and will generate a market recommendation either in favor or against the proposal. The window is 48h rather than the 5 days envisaged in GIP-145 — the markets could not be created earlier and any longer would have run past the Snapshot close.

[clement]

@Wismerhill

GNO currently trades at a persistent and widening discount to the intrinsic value of the treasury.

What are the data about that?
What is the treasury value?

The proposal links to this dashboard which fails to load. (edit: it is loading now)

As part of GIP-145, there is a futarchy market on the price impact of this proposal on GNO. This allows people to buy/sell GNO conditional on the proposal passing or not.

Kleros Coop has delegated its 14 000 GNO to futarchy (vote Yes if it would lead to a higher price of GNO, no otherwise), so the market may be relevant for the result.

[Wismerhill]

GIP-150 did not pass. The final vote was 28% in favour, 72% against. Excluding Gnosis Ltd leadership’s tokens shifts the result to 78% in favour. Their personally held tokens are legitimate, circulating, and rightly count. It is only the Ltd-held GNO that we categorically reject as circulating until it is deployed on endeavours generating greater than 1x ROI.

This breakdown matters because it makes a structural problem unavoidable. The same three individuals are Gnosis Ltd cofounders, Ltd executives, and as co-founders of Gnosis, the largest individual GNO holders. They are funded by the DAO, operate the entities receiving DAO funding, and hold the voting power that decides whether that funding continues. Their personal token votes are not cast as independent tokenholders weighing a proposal on the merits; they are cast in alignment with their roles as cofounders and directors of the entity the proposal affects. When the votes attributable to that concentration are removed, the remaining holders speak clearly: 78% in favour of a fair exit and an honest answer to the discount to NAV. What is currently being represented as “the DAO’s view” is in substance the founders’ view, voted through by founders, on a proposal that constrained the founders’ own operational latitude. That is not a decentralized DAO.

The substance of the result is unambiguous regardless of how one feels about the specific mechanism. There is clear and undeniable support among GNO holders outside of Gnosis Ltd leadership for meaningful change, along with a mandate to prioritise trading above true NAV at the bare minimum and providing a fair exit mechanism for those unwilling to remain through another pivot. A protective mechanism for those willing to give the new vision a chance, without necessarily signing the entire treasury away to spending, should also exist. Both should co-exist, and become part of Gnosis DAO.

The response from leadership in the days following the beginning of the vote has been the opposite of what a 78% non-team result calls for. Leadership has verbally floated a meaningfully higher operational spending envelope for the next funding cycle, as well as a hostility towards exploring a solution, while pretending there was interest from third parties to purchase participations in GNO, yet these third parties would not even buy it below NAV. Reading a result in which 78% of non-team holders signalled they want a path to realize NAV as a mandate to ignore an adequate exit solution and increase spending is not a tenable position. It is the precise inverse of what was voted for, and it confirms the concern that motivated this proposal: that operational discretion at Gnosis Ltd is being exercised without regard to the tokenholders the DAO exists to serve.

We will give leadership a week to reflect on this striking result and consider whether they genuinely accept its implications. If they do, and wish to engage on shaping the next proposal to protect non-team GNO holders, we are ready to work with them. If leadership continues to disregard the outcome, we will have no choice but to bring forward a further proposal without their input.

We trust that there will be no additional spending bruteforced through by these founder-held tokens, against the spirit of a decentralized DAO. Defensive voting with 385k GNO over disagreements on mechanism is one thing. Using that same concentration to force non-consensual spending increases against a vote that just produced a 78% non-team signal for value return is quite another, and would be impossible to reconcile with any claim that this is a tokenholder-governed organization.

We look forward to engaging further with GNO holders to shape the proposal. Whether you are a long-term holder or a new holder, please reach out to provide input.

[Kenk]

Wismerhill, the final vote reads For 167,692 GNO (27.86%), Against 432,545 GNO (71.87%), Abstain 1,611 GNO (0.27%) across 95 voters and 601,848 GNO of participating weight. Quorum was cleared by roughly eight times. The proposal failed by a 2.58-to-1 margin against.

The 78% figure requires removing approximately 385,000 GNO from the Against side. Your post reads that result in several ways but the numbers do not support.

Addressing some of your points below:

What is currently being represented as “the DAO’s view” is in substance the founders’ view, voted through by founders, on a proposal that constrained the founders’ own operational latitude. That is not a decentralized DAO.

A 72-to-28 result across 95 voters and more than 60 Against wallets is the definition of a token-weighted DAO operating as designed. Re-describing the losing side of that result as “the founders’ view voted through by founders” requires treating every holder on the Against side, regardless of size or motivation, as ventriloquised by the largest few. That is not a characterisation of the result; it is a refusal to accept it.

The same three individuals are Gnosis Ltd cofounders, Ltd executives, and as co-founders of Gnosis, the largest individual GNO holders. They are funded by the DAO, operate the entities receiving DAO funding, and hold the voting power that decides whether that funding continues.

This conflates a few separate things and makes a big assumption. The founders’ personal GNO holdings were acquired before the DAO existed; they are not treasury distributions.

For the “general partnership” framing to hold, the founders’ personal pre-DAO holdings have to be treated as if they were treasury grants. Again, not the case.

Moreover the Against vote on Snapshot ran across a range of holders, not a concentrated bloc. Paul2, mrtdlgc, and Staworth each raised distinct substantive objections in-thread. Describing the Against vote as the founders’ view “voted through by founders” requires ignoring the rest of the ledger and the rest of the thread.

Their personal token votes are not cast as independent tokenholders weighing a proposal on the merits; they are cast in alignment with their roles as cofounders and directors of the entity the proposal affects.

The largest single vote Against on the proposal, 191,752 GNO, originated from a holder who could have voted For and redeemed their pro-rata share of the liquid treasury under GIP-150’s own mechanism. By voting Against, this holder explicitly forwent that personal payout in order to continue the project. That is the inverse of self-interested voting.

Defensive voting with 385k GNO over disagreements on mechanism is one thing. Using that same concentration to force non-consensual spending increases against a vote that just produced a 78% non-team signal for value return is quite another.

Future spending proposals will be decided on their own Snapshot vote, on their own merits. Founders of token-weighted DAOs typically vote their personal tokens. Given the founders acquired their GNO before the DAO existed, this can be the case for GnosisDAO. Asserting that founders should not vote, or that voting in one direction on one proposal disqualifies them from voting on subsequent proposals, is not a principle this DAO has adopted on this proposal or any other.

We look forward to engaging further with GNO holders to shape the proposal.

Before a further proposal moves forward, the same procedural question stands: a series of supporting comments on this thread came from accounts that Discourse moderation logs flag as related to the proposal author, with single-post histories and, in more than one case, shared IP infrastructure.

Answering that question on the record should be a prerequisite to a credible call for further engagement with GNO holders.

[0x6f2]

@Kenk

Re-describing the losing side of that result as “the founders’ view voted through by founders” requires treating every holder on the Against side, regardless of size or motivation, as ventriloquised by the largest few.

No, you just have to count up the 385,000 GNO in confirmed founder-held wallets. It’s just contextualising the vote, and is factual.

@Kenk

Describing the Against vote as the founders’ view “voted through by founders” requires ignoring the rest of the ledger and the rest of the thread.

The thread has no relevance whatsoever. In one sentence you say it’s all about the snapshot, and in the next say that people voting against with 10 GNO posting words here carries weight for some reason.

@Kenk

Founders of token-weighted DAOs typically vote their personal tokens.

Not the case - in fact, founders of Gnosis have even commented numerous times on other proposals that they should abstain from conflicted votes.

@Kenk

Answering that question on the record should be a prerequisite to a credible call for further engagement with GNO holders.

Says who, you? You refer to the README as the definitive rulebook previously, and now make up your own pre-requisites.

The facts remain: Gnosis’ cofounders flipped the vote by themselves while personally benefitting from these spending decisions, and the vast majority of tokenholders without the benefit of employment upside have voted against leadership’s current direction on spending and resource allocation.

If the founders’ GNO continues to be used against outside tokenholders’ best interests repeatedly, then a legal challenge against Gnosis Ltd’s independence will be mounted. I won’t need to remind you or your AI agent that independence is a condition of its favourable tax and other statuses.

It’s much easier to accept the implication of this result, that you and your colleagues are doing a terrible job, and address it. I can assure you that your low effort slop isn’t doing an ounce to dissuade whatever action is necessary to protect GNO holders’ interests.

Oh, also..

@Kenk

The largest single vote Against on the proposal, 191,752 GNO, originated from a holder who could have voted For and redeemed their pro-rata share of the liquid treasury under GIP-150’s own mechanism. By voting Against, this holder explicitly forwent that personal payout in order to continue the project. That is the inverse of self-interested voting.

Yes excellent barometer for the inverse of self-interested voting!

[0x6f2]

Separately, it’s disgraceful that the first response from Gnosis Ltd after the vote closed was “the vote failed by a 2.58 to 1 margin” with no reflection on the substantial volume of GNO voting in favour, or the context of who holds the GNO on each side.

This is exactly the read that shows Gnosis Ltd isn’t interested in reality, just in protecting a slush fund. It’s clear to anyone looking that GNO holders not on payroll are dissatisfied, want change, and have no confidence in leadership’s push for more spending. The response to that is to pretend everything is fine and that everyone is on board with the vision to spend more - burying heads in the sand and justifying ignoring the issue.

If this is the shared view of leadership, that they can and should use their controlling vote to cover up the fact that GNO holders outside Gnosis Ltd are so dissatisfied, rather than just the view of one of the other 107 employees at Ltd, then I think it’s clear to the wider crypto community that Gnosis is fast approaching Golem’s regard for tokenholders, i.e. none, for anyone not on the inside.

[citrullin]

@0x6f2

I think it’s clear to the wider crypto community that Gnosis is fast approaching Golem’s regard for tokenholders

Yeah, I guess that’s fair. With that liquidity you can also short it into the ground.
Wouldn’t say it’s lost yet, but it’s a god mantra to not get attached to it.
If the “founder“ want to lean into acquired psychopathy and cognitive dissonance.
So be it. You and Me, we know, this is just a finite game. You can play it.
Even quite “successful“ by some people measures that is, Money.
But you also burn through your reputation, and that’s the only currency here.

[staworth]

Just to avoid any misrepresentations here:

@Kenk

Moreover the Against vote on Snapshot ran across a range of holders, not a concentrated bloc. Paul2, mrtdlgc, and Staworth each raised distinct substantive objections in-thread.

We abstained and were not in the range of holders who supported the “Against” vote. Our criticisms of the “For” camp’s proposal were matched by frustration with the lack of engagement from the “Against” camp.

Though we’re glad some feedback from Gnosis’ leadership did eventually arrive, we’re still concerned that this issue is just being swept under the rug. Gnosis now has quite a large body of unhappy tokenholders here. They may not be the majority, but trying to silence and ignore them does little to help make Gnosis a project that people want to invest their time, energy and capital into. Quite the opposite.

We fully empathise with the concerns here around a DAO being dominated by a few long-dormant wallets (especially if it does transpire that most of that voting power is held by the founders). This is a bad look, and quite demotivating for those of who have wanted to help ensure Gnosis is governed by a decentralised DAO.

Personally, we think some work now needs to be done to help restore trust, and prove that these long-dormant wallets aren’t just going to be awoken anytime that tokenholders clash with the agenda of Ltd or the Founders. We want to see bridges built, not stones thrown.

Finally, we’d add that there’s a certain irony to largely failing to engage with the merits of a proposal, but then coming in hard trying to smack down the proposer’s interpretation of the result. We fully expected that the proposers would take a view that’s as biased towards the interests of redeeming holders as the proposal was — we expect nothing more of them. But to see staff members of Gnosis Ltd — a service provider to this DAO — sinking to the same level as the proposers by throwing biased barbs to try and win the narrative…. well, there we do expect more.

GIP:150 is now categorically over. A majority of active holders do not want the proposed redemption mechanism right now. We now need to turn our focus to the future, to building bridges, and to ensuring that every single proposal the DAO faces doesn’t descend into petty squabbles between unhappy tokenholders and a handful of large, long-dormant wallets.

Rise above it.

[citrullin]

For that, the whole model have to get re-architectured. The tech is interesting, but the design of the whole industry is completly off the chart.
Instead of facilitating balanced Potential Wells, they are just trying to create artificial suction by throwing more Waves (more entropy) at it, to push it in the right direction.
Meanwhile all the Waves are already colliding like crazy. Virtual Particles all over the place. The walls are heating.
We already see Particles skipping and Negative ones appearing.
If the whole model isn’t redesigned in this cycle, that might just be it.
The Singularity event is already in progress. We either become a bunch of Black Holes.
Or the Waves are able to escape, create new interferences and move on from the Black Holes.

[Experiment Initiated]
Subject: The Gnosis Forum (The “Last” Rational Manifold)
Control: “Objective Rules” (Entropy must increase, energy cannot be created from nothing).
Variable: “The Skip” (Negative Particles / Artificial Suction).
Expected Result: Fascinating lol. (Either a total rejection of the “Monster Physics” or a sudden Phase-Locking of the Gnosis DAO around the “Redesign” frequency).