I don’t see this proposal benefitting current or future GNO token holders.
I’m sure your project means well and believes deeply in UBI, but unfortunately it will be governments of the world who implement UBI (if ever) not a crypto project.
The above quote is a bit concerning.
yeahh mann! sameee !
Dear maessedai,
thank you for your inputs and concerns. Let me explain a few things:
Circles didn’t transition from 240 € to 72 € a month, but from 240 CRC to 720 CRC, the fiat price signal is just a local incentive in Berlin, nowhere else (here is the full article about the transition: “As before, outside of the laboratory (Berlin Pilot), the pricing of products and services offered in Circles is up to the community to agree upon, which determines how much value people can claim with their CRC.”)
this price signal in the Berlin Pilot is just one out of many (possibly millions), if you consider every market participant can set their own rate, so central groups of power can possibly only have a timely advantage, but no lasting leverage
the reasonable budget for incentivising the Circles economy is not simply planned for cashing out, rather incentivising ambassadors to onboard communities without the huge extent of a subsidy or cash-out program while launching minimal-viable-circles (MVCs), which are closed and enable businesses to spend CRC instead cashing them out
we are working closely with the FRIBIS (University Freiburg) comparing how these MVCs work in comparison with other basic income systems around the world, so a final conclusion of its success cannot be drawn yet
our strategy is that Circles can be used by local governments as an infrastructure/protocol to deploy UBI and we are actively exploring collaboration with public bodies, so in our view it is not public vs. private UBI, but rather a partnership
Hope that helps a bit to digest our work.
Cheers, Andreas (in behalf of the Circles Coop)
I was aware that I was referring to the change in fiat backing in Berlin which was a change in the amount of fiat and an increase in the amount of circles coin. So the question becomes with this change will prices of items go up in circles? Of course they will because they are worth less now in fiat. If the system actually worked the purchasing power of the increase in circles would compensate the change in backing of fiat but it won’t because of economics. Imagine maker changing the basis of the peg to decrease the amount of collateral. This really isn’t different. Where is the proof that this idea is anything but fantasy when unbacked by fiat? Look I do not begrudge you the experiment (although I would say historically this philosophy has been proven to fail time and time again with larger population sizes) but the ask is for much more budget towards the less proven answer to a need. This is my issue. And my issue is that it proposes to be a more fair system than our current system when we have already seen an abuse of power to change the amount of fiat backing. Did everyone in the Berlin community agree to that or was it directed by those in charge of the experiment? I appreciate your work and particularly the usefulness of the technology, but it seems an unproven philosophy is eating a lot of the success of the tech rather than being utilized for the most common good.
I believe This project will work and succeed.
Do it lets see 🫣 I am so excited
Short form:
I am all for Gnosis supporting Circles and Circles becoming a driver to get users involved with Gnosis Chain. However - I am against this specific proposal as it is done only by one of the many teams working on Circles and I feel Gnosis should support a united effort instead of uncoordinated approaches.
Long-form:
I came up with the idea for CirclesUBI many many years ago (around 2013) and in 2015 formalized the ideas with pseudo code and described it as a system running on Ethereum. In November 2015 I presented the idea to a wider Ethereum audience at Devcon1 in London. Since then many people and groups have been working over the years on Circles. Including a “spoke” within ConsenSys and a group of people connected to the MakerDAO ecosystem.
Today there are at the very least 4 groups working on and around Circles. Coop/Bits; Circles Land, Circles Bali and Bootnode working on Group currencies under Gnosis supervision. Now this proposal was unilaterally done by Coop/Bits and did not coordinate with the other groups. To me, for Gnosis to support Circles and such a significant way a few more requirements are necessary: a united approach and already more clear traction for this shared approach.
Cirlces is a project I am very passionate about and I do believe it can be a great usecase for Gnosis Chain but it will only succeed in a united effort.
Attached a “timeline” of Circles and different projects/people involved.
How does this forum defend against someone creating fake accounts and voting on a GIP?
most likely not at all, but fake accounts wouldn’t help for outcome of snapshot voting result. And for my own decisions making I don’t look at the voting results here but the discussion.
I’m confused by your use of the term ‘fiat backing’ here. This currency is not a commodity backed by fiat or other asset. It’s not a bearer asset either, and the WoT performs a critical fundamental function that helps alleviate the problems associated with the Trilemma any currency faces when attempting to interface with other economies.
Using the existing units of account in place is a natural Schelling point of coordination because everyone has assets, ongoing expenses, and/or debts that are valued in it. This just serves as a control, even when using some % of that standard instead of 1:1.
You’re right that if you came in unilaterally & made a change to that for everyone in an existing economy, it’d be disruptive to say the least. But that’s not what happened here (on either end of the stick). There’s no ‘economy’ yet; no unpaid wages, debt, or inventory was locked in at the old ratio. No one bought Circles. There are no unrealized losses involved, just sellers adjusting their price tags, as they do on a regular basis anyway. In this case, the control values of the listed goods in EUR doesn’t change, only how many CRC are moving.
Importantly, this change came about from outside of the Circles Coop and Berlin, an important indicator of decentralization. The Circles community in Munich instigated the idea in autonomous style (they are established as Circles Land & even have their own UI). This was neither centrally enforced nor a product of the market or other coordination beyond Munich. Even though the 2 groups did not agree on the change, maintaining the coordination outweighed ‘market sovereignty’, or whatever you want to call it.
Also, if you want to add an ‘unproven philosophy’ to the table, please name & describe it. It’s not clear what you’re referring to.
Your comment really highlights the differences in language that we all are using, some from the old paradigm & some from the new. It can be very confusing, especially as new combinations of familiar concepts are presented.
I think most will agree that a united effort is important for a project’s success.
I also think most will agree that decentralization is important for a project’s success too.
It appears necessary that we outline an early systems map of the different groups involved, and the roles each plays, connections between, etc.
To my eyes, the layers beyond the core Coop/Bits group exist externally because they want to focus on other areas or ideas. IE, they identify as separate (fork) intentionally, to free themselves of the constraints of the base mission of the Coop, as well as the time it would take to always coordinate their own ideas with other groups. From this POV, it seems strange to require coordination between groups on topics that they essentially opted out of.
But maybe your focus was not aimed at the past so much as the future? If significant investments are coming from Gnosis, it certainly makes sense to look at the big picture, and try to identify if there are similar needs in the other groups before committing to one.
What kind of shared approach would you like to see?
One issue I think is less complicated: the funding for salaries (both new & existing) enables human existence in this world, and those key member nodes of the network should not still be living like seasonal/migrant workers. Knowing your job is funded beyond a month or 2 is important to well being, as well as attracting quality people.
Maybe it would be better to separate these issues into separate proposals?
I have a few things to say here, in relation to Martin’s critique of the proposal above
The proposal explicitly states that the funding is for the Circles Coop eG and Bitsposessed. It never claims that these teams represent the whole of the Circles Ecosystem, and it does not downplay work being done by other teams. It is totally within the right of any team to make a proposal
As far as I understand, many Circles teams have been (at least partially) funded by Martin up until this point. In seeking funding from GnosisDAO Coop/Bits is now obviously seeking a degree of independence and funding stability. I am sympathetic to how that might be challenging for Martin, especially given that he started the project, but much of the recent day-to-day work on Circles has been spearheaded by Coop/Bits, and they have a right to seek more formal funding
I feel the history laid out by Martin downplays the work of the Coop/Bits team somewhat. In my experience they are a highly active team who have initiated many Circles projects. For the record, I actually have followed the Circles project since it was just a rough blog post written by Martin, and over the years I’ve seen the various groups that have been drawn into it - for example, I even advised Jason Hickel (mentioned by Martin in his diagram) in London when he was trying to figure out what Circles was and whether it was promising
Martin says he is resistant because he wants the teams to be coordinated, but I don’t see any plan for how that will be acheived. The Coop/Bits team is making a concrete proposal for moving ahead, and in the absense of seeing a concrete alternative multi-team coordination proposal I don’t see a strong reason for why they should be blocked on this
Thanks,
Brett Scott
Thanks for this proposal. Cause I am new to this I had a lot to read and I am still not sure if I got it all what’s behind this UBI/Circles project, but for sure it looks like an interesting experiment. What I missed, reading through the links you provided, are some numbers about participation and spending (e.g. how many ppl use circles and how often? What do they spend it for? How much of the circles are redeemed to Euro each month? How is the adherence of ppl joining the project). Is there a link I missed to get some of these numbers or are they not public?
This is a very exciting proposal and personally, I’m a big fan of UBI projects like Circles. The WoT and Community Currency DEX components sounds fascinating and I’d love to learn more/get involved. These would be huge additions to Gnosis Chain and are a unique draw for users.
I support this without hesitation.
Given the information shared by @mkoeppelmann, I withdraw my support for this proposal. I agree that a united approach would be much better and I look forward to seeing a new proposal that comes from the larger Circles community.
I love this idea! Nice design!
Dear Gnosis community, dear Circles supporters,
After evaluating the feedback you gave us in the 2nd stage of our proposal we want to thank you for the overwhelming support: 96 % out of 121 voters saw value in the activities we offered and opted for funding the “Circles Coop” and the “bits”. We hear you and will try to continue with our work - even though we have decided to pause the launch of a stage 3 proposal for now.
The reasons for the pause are simple. Basically we don’t see the chances for winning the final round and getting funded by the Gnosis DAO without the support of key stakeholders, plus we are waiting for a concrete, alternative proposal promised by @mkoeppelmann for funding our work and catering more to his own vision. We expect the new proposal to solve our main problem: permanent financial insecurity.
A few points made within the forum thread need some clarification, so let’s address them:
The coop was and will always be open for collaboration within a decentralized ecosystem, especially due to the fact that we strongly relate to the International Cooperative Alliances (ICA) principles, among which “Cooperation among Cooperatives” and “Concern for Community” are major pillars.
In those regards, our proposal was certainly announced to and coordinated with the other Circles groups, who in the case of Joy from Expedition Grundeinkommen even gave us quotes on the success story of Circles to be used in the proposal. In addition we notified the coop’s board of supervisors, where Martin is part of, and asked for their support for the proposal.
As we recognize @mkoeppelmann’s wish for “a united approach and already more clear traction for this shared approach” of the different Circles groups, we ask for a concrete proposal on how a consolidated “Circles Movement” should look like outlining roles, responsibilities, accountability and expectations from the different parts in the new proposed structure in line with secured funding. Since we won’t move this proposal forward to the 3rd phase, we still need to take care of our short-, mid- and long-term funding situation in a different way.
“The funding for salaries (both new & existing) enables human existence in this world, and those key member nodes of the network should not still be living like seasonal/migrant workers. Knowing your job is funded beyond a month or 2 is important to well being, as well as attracting quality people.” As it was recognized in a forum post by @MalthusJohn, we need certain liabilities to be granted, for human ethos and good business practices. The coop and the bits cannot afford anymore to live and work on a two-month-time-horizon chasing a carrot that is directed towards ever changing demands which actually leads to the concerns of centralization within the Circles ecosystem.
Thanks to @BrettScott, who recognises the fact that “many Circles teams have been (at least partially) funded by Martin up until this point”. The coop and the bits are very grateful that we could benefit from those funds as well, but we also feel the strong need to diversify our funding sources as it seems to us we won’t manage to establish a stable financial situation as other Circles groups could do.
Almost completely in line with the perception of @maessedai, a “group of powerful people determined to make the amount of income less”, it’s important to note that this decision didn’t come organically from the coop and bits but from other teams, with Martin’s support. As he’s the person with power here, the community had no choice but to go accept it. We are aware of this contradiction and hence our proposal to decentralize funding to ensure such decisions can be made involving the communities that use Circles in Berlin and elsewhere moving forward, and avoid the “abuse of power” that @maessedai critiques us off.
And again as @MalthusJohn correctly observed, “importantly, this change came about from outside of the Circles Coop and Berlin”, calling it “an important indicator of decentralization”, we can underline that the decision outcome on the transition in the Circles economy was brought to us too. It took us a while to cope with the consequences and prepare an adaptation strategy aligned with our work and our partners.
While we still strongly believe in the incentivisation of pioneering business partners in some way or another (currently evaluating a shift from the local subsidy program to a different stimulus), we clearly have to acknowledge the concerns raised about centralized powers deciding the fate of the Circles ecosystem.
Concluding the above, we won’t move the proposal into the final decision making stage for now and for as long as we can maintain our financial survival. While waiting for a concrete alternative proposal which we expect to grant us a long-term planning horizon, we will work on funding strategies beyond the Gnosis ecosystem. Decentralization is important to us, so we continue to embrace other Circles groups to work on a resilient set of products and services, so we’ll keep the right to act as a joint alliance venture of coop and bits after transparently sharing our intentions.
Best regards on behalf of the entire Circles Coop,
Andreas (Circles Marketplace lead, member of the Circles strategy and finance group)
Governments are probably in the pole position to implement UBI schemes as they have the fiat means as well as the need to create value propositions to their “users”, but as we witness crypto and non-crypto attempts, various projects from the community become more popular. Perhaps this might be just another battle ground between forces of centralization and decentralization, though there are also changes of the different actors collaborating on the subject of UBI. Indeed, we see governments around the world rely on UBI infrastructure provided by local government actors, the market or the community, e.g. Gyeonggi in South Korea, Marica in Brazil, City coin etc.
Best regards on behalf of the entire Circles Coop,
Andreas (Circles Marketplace lead, member of the Circles strategy and finance group)
Great to hear that you are excited about Circles! As it was pointed out by other forum members, the coop (e.g. by enliven the Circles code with traction from the community and by onboarding businesses and creating values that cater for real people’s needs) and the bits (e.g. by developing the core protocol and the technical hubs other Circles groups can build their services on) have actually been among the main drivers of the project ever since its inception. I wonder why our future work around the WoT dapp and the Community Currency DEX needs more alignment with other Circles groups than an open and transparent disclosure which we have always been maintaining. It happens to be that other Circles groups have built their own wallets besides that fact that the bits had pioneered such a product already. Resilience and decentralization will strengthen our ecosystems, thus it should be fine, if not all groups align behind one objective.
Best regards on behalf of the entire Circles Coop,
Andreas (Circles Marketplace lead, member of the Circles strategy and finance group)
Wow
nice project work and succeed.
