I definitely think that GnosisDAO can benefit from improvements in its governance. Also figuring out ways to incentivize participation , reward delegates etc. And having a party actilvely push for this makes a lot of sense.
But I want to re-iterate what Dave says that I don’t see how being paid with a % of the DAO’s AUM makes any sense for this.
Hey everyone!
Thanks Gnosis Guild for bringin an update! Here is our feedback for the original post
Some opinions remain the same, particulary this one:
Same goes for the Budget. Aligned with what @dave and @lefterisjp mentioned (not to be repetitive, but it should be seen as a flag, not because the total amount, but due to the structure), charging an AUM flat percentage makes sense for treasury managers because the effort and risk scale with every extra dollar.
For an infra / R&D provider, workload depends on how many features, contracts, users they have to serve (not on whether the GNO price doubles). If the token goes up, the fee jumps even though the number of pull‑requests stays roughly the same and viceversa. Mismatch ends up costing the DAO’s holders.
It also uses as reference resources from 2022 that might be outdated given the development pace of the DAO industry.
- Fix 90 % of the annual budget in USDC as a base reainer. (paid monthly).
- Keep only 10 % as a variable component, set at 0.03 % of AUM and hard capped (e.g. max 100 k USD per year, min 50k). Can be paid in vested GNO for example.
Also for transparency
Milestones & KPIs to unlock payments
Define specific deliverables beforehand (not just introducing them in the future, including x y z). Particularly around Continuous Stewardship and Operations, where the team composed largely of senior engineers may not be ideally positioned to lead on execution.
For example:
What does this entail in terms of development and execution? It appears to represent 1 of the 3 proposed focus areas. Does it corresponds to approximately 300k USD based on the updated AUM? We believe these details should be included given the size of the funding request.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Appreciate all the feedback @dave, @lefterisjp, and @SEEDLatam. Taking your points into account, we’ve decided to remove the AUM-based fee and modify the compensation structure as follows:
A monthly $38k USDC + $38k GNO (priced at the time the proposal passes).
This would ensure we have a stable fiat payment to sustain the pod through any downturns, while still providing Gnosis Guild with a long-term incentive alignment for our work. The GNO portion would also have a 1-year lockup from receipt.
The duration would be for 24 months, able to be terminated at any time.
The team would be comprised of 3.5 guild members including senior full-stack engineers, solidity engineers, mechanism designers, governance leads, PM, researchers, comms, and ops as-needed. The typical team will include 2 senior engineers, one PM/governance lead, and part-time comms/ops, adjusting based on current projects.
I agree with the general feedback of the thread and I’m glad that you removed the AUM component of the fees. However I think I believe that adding a recurring $0.9M cost to the DAO does not make sense at this point. This project should probably be structured in a way with a heavier workload to revamp the governance structure in the beginning and then enter maintenance mode. If anything, more transparency about the team composition, as requested by @SEEDLatam, makes sense.
GIP-99 and Delegate Program (GIP-101)
Hey all ,
With the delegate program now live following GIP-101, I’m curious how Gnosis Guild plans to integrate or align with this initiative.
What role do you see for the elected delegates within your proposed governance framework?
How does Gnosis Guild plan to engage with or support this program in the coming months?
Best,
In our opinion, the DAO will be best served with an ongoing team dedicated to improving governance. We don’t see it as a one-time thing to be maintained, but rather continuous innovation and iteration on the structure.
If the DAO prefers a fixed team we can work with that and provide more concrete details on it. However, we don’t think it makes sense for this mandate, as the team will shift based on emergent needs. For example, one month the team may be focused on mechanism design and research, followed by a month of full-stack execution, leading to a month of auditing, operations and governance stewardship. The benefit to the DAO is that it doesn’t need to employ a full team for these many roles.
Hey Louk, we plan to work closely with delegates on this initiative. We’ll create a process for delegates to identify pain-points and projects that we could build out solutions for, as well as providing early feedback on changes we propose to the DAO. Gnosis Guild would be a facilitator and executor of delegate/stakeholder goals.
We’d also like to explore ways we can extend the role of delegates through parallel governance mechanisms, such as delegate councils for small grants or other onchain processes. This would of course be developed in conversation with delegates and under DAO approval.
We are broadly supportive of the proposed mandate for Gnosis Guild, and agree that there’s much to be done to improve and strengthen the systems that facilitate the DAO’s governance.
We also broadly agree with @nesk here about the revised pricing:
$76k per month (assuming static GNO price) for an estimate of 3.5 FTE equates to an average salary of $260k per FTE. Though our maths here completely ignores any other costs incurred and a reasonable profit margin, our immediate reaction was: “Is this amount really needed for 24 months of loosely-scoped work?”
However, if this were framed instead as $76k per month for the ITP based on the deliverables, with a subsequent process of price and deliverables setting, it would be easier to stomach (even if $76k were subsequently agreed and retained throughout). It’s in the later stages of the 24-month term where it’s harder to gauge the value (and easier to imagine the value dropping off).
We also recognise our logic about the price being mirrored in @espina’s logic about the team:
We think that a fixed team and a fixed price over a long fixed period makes a lot less sense than shifting the scope based on emergent needs. However, we also recognise the importance of a stable, long-term mandate in giving Gnosis Guild the certainty to pursue ambitious solutions that require serious time and investment.
To us, the obvious solution would be to build on this kind of fixed/variable split proposed by @SEEDLatam:
For the fixed element, this would mean a comfortable monthly retainer for Gnosis Guild that supports a level of ongoing work and maintenance (equivalent to Nesk’s “maintenance mode”).
For the variable component, it would mean having scope for a larger amount to be paid based on the work that’s demanded and meeting regular milestones (e.g. set in 3 or 6-month reviews). Where there’s less demand, the variable component would shrink, and so would the demands on the team. Ongoing scoping could be handled by a small committee tasked with overseeing this mandate.
In a scenario like this, we would be happy to approve the $38k stables + $38k GNO proposal as a total budget, with a retainer of say $25k per month and a variable scope of $51k during the ITP. We expect the full amount would be suitable for the ITP (and perhaps the milestones immediately after that), but in Year 2 expect the scope could decrease if not needed. This approach would leave space for the mandate to continue while adjusting costs to suit demand.
Thoughts?
Otherwise, our only comment would be that this mandate should aim to minimise duplication with other ongoing work/mandates. For example, on treasury dashboards, we’re conscious of kpk’s extensive monthly treasury reports… work across the two mandates should be aligned wherever possible to reduce overlap/waste.
Perhaps a bit more context on Gnosis Guild is useful. We operate as a hybrid between a venture studio and what we’re calling an Autonomous Core Contributor to different partners.
In our Autonomous Core Contributor model, we seek to form long-term partnerships with DAOs and take on meaningful exposure in their token, sharing in the mutual upside of our contributions.
Barely covering costs and receiving 90% payment in fiat is incompatible with our model. The opportunity cost is simply too high with our team building out new ventures like Enclave (currently valued at $60M FDV).
We believe this model is far more beneficial than a contractor-like arrangement for both parties. We’re also confident that we’re one of the more experienced and capable teams able to take this work on.
Thank you, @espina , for this updated proposal. I am writing this comment on behalf of Kleros Cooperative. We are deeply invested in the success of the Gnosis Ecosystem, as we manage one of the largest sets of GNO validators.
First, we want to emphasize the significant need for proper governance stewardship for Gnosis DAO. Gnosis stands out among major DAOs for its minimal governance structure. We have experienced some drawbacks of it, such as basic features like voting delegation not always functioning properly. In our view, there is a substantial opportunity cost for Gnosis DAO in not having its governance efficiently managed, as most major DAOs leverage robust governance to boost their ecosystems.
We believe Gnosis Guild is a strong candidate for this role. At Kleros, we have collaborated with their team on the Kleros Snapshot Module as part of the Zodiac suite and can attest to their integrity and top technical skills.
Regarding compensation, we appreciate that one of our key pieces of feedback, shared privately—switching from an AUM model to fixed fees with vested GNO—was incorporated. We understand some delegates’ concerns about the costs still being relatively high but want to emphasize that Gnosis Guild is also sharing the risks by being locked 1year in GNO. To better understand the compensation we would appreciate additional information about their overall overhead structure.
Lastly, we greatly appreciate the mention of Futarchy in the proposal. We know that @auryn_macmillan is a strong supporter of such innovative and efficient governance methods. Given Gnosis’s origin story with prediction markets, partial delegation could be a way to experiment with a price-based Futarchy module, where a DAO member could delegate, for example, 10% of their voting power to a Futarchy contract.
In our opinion, the proposed compensation is on the higher end, but given the context outlined above, we believe it could still fall within the “acceptable range”, especially considering the opportunity cost of not implementing any effective governance framework.
Thanks @0xAlex, we’re happy to have the support of Kleros Cooperative!
We agree, the opportunity cost of not implementing effective governance and innovating on the infrastructure is much higher.
On the compensation, as the GNO portion is locked the fiat portion amounts to around $130k per FTE. Like you mentioned we take on downside risk and plan to hold GNO long-term, not using it to cover payroll. In addition to salary costs we have standard startup overhead costs, infrastructure costs we’ll cover for the DAO from this budget, and compensate contributors in equity, bringing the true cost close to the total requested amount. We don’t outsource the engineering and have a team of top-tier contributors. Profit would come primarily from GNO appreciation which makes it a meaningful incentive alignment.
We agree with the issues raised in this proposal, and are broadly supportive of the proposed mandate for Gnosis Guild.
One point we wanted to clarify ahead of voting is the meaning of “capital allocation” in this proposal. We understand from these discussions and our direct conversations with Gnosis Guild that this refers to ensuring efficient routes for financing proposals to move through DAO governance to execution, so that the DAO can take up good opportunities promptly as they arise. We fully agree with this objective, and believe Gnosis Guild have the necessary skills and experience to deliver meaningful improvements here.
We do however see that there may be room for confusion, as capital allocation is a core part of our mandate (for day-to-day treasury operations and investing into DeFi), as well as the main function of Gnosis VC (for early-stage investments). This could be misinterpreted to suggest that Gnosis Guild’s mandate involves implementing novel mechanisms in treasury operations or early-stage investing, beyond its core focus on DAO governance. However, we understand from Gnosis Guild that this is not the intended meaning, and that it is envisaged that each of the three capital allocation functions should coexist as distinct and operationally separate mandates.
With that said, we also agree with previous comments about efficiency, and ensuring tasks are not duplicated across different mandates. Should this proposal receive DAO approval, we will look forward to collaborating closely with Gnosis Guild to deliver each of our respective mandates moving forwards.
We appreciate the support @Karpatkey! We’re aligned on the clarification. These will be distinct yet complementary mandates and we’d look forward to partnering closely with kpk to serve the DAO.
Thanks everyone for all of your feedback 
We will be moving the proposal to snapshot shortly
Thanks to the Gnosis Guild team for putting forward a well-structured proposal. Stake Capital voted in favor of GIP-99.
The trial phase is a solid starting point to validate key deliverables. That said, coordination with other mandates will be essential to avoid overlap and clarify roles.
We’ll be following the next steps closely.
Stake Capital
First post here. I’ve been watching quietly from the rafters.
This GIP asks for $38 k USDC + $38 k GNO every single month (≈ $76 k/mo, ≈ $0.9-1 M over 24 months). That’s larger than many pre-seed raises, yet it’s framed as a “grant.”
But where’s the breakdown?
A steward worthy of $1 M should lead with radical transparency, show the roster, titles, hours, and why each hire is indispensable. Until then, this looks less like stewardship and more like a blank check written on the DAO’s treasury.
Think twice before validating this circus and decimating the DAO.
I have to agree with the user here.
Appreciate that you reacted to our feedback and I am not against having the GnosisDAO have an improved governance but that is not well defined at this point in the proposal.
I need to see a specific scope of what they want to build and what the money is for. As far as I understand the only thing to do here is the split + Transitive delegation, which does not sound like a 2 year project 
The treasury dashboard sounds like it’s on the Karpatkey domain.
Also the money is a lot even without the AUM approach.
38k+38k = $76k per month! For a team of 3.5 people? That amounts to an average monthly salary of $21,714 which to me sounds insanely high.
For comparison my team (rotki) is a team of 7 people and we are burning ~$35k-$40k per month. One of those 7 is me.
I would need to see specific qualifications and godly stats to justify such amounts. Or to be more precise I would just not pay these money for 3.5 people, no matter who they were.
The split + transitive delegation is just one of the initial trial period projects to be completed within 3 months, definitely not intended to take 2 years. We’ve structured the proposal with a clear mandate and open-ended scope to adapt to the DAO’s needs and the evolving desires of stakeholders. A complete list of everything we’ll build over the two years wouldn’t make sense, as a significant part of that entails ongoing research, facilitation, and experimentation, seeing what works and what doesn’t. We’re not able to make decisions for the DAO, like instituting a new governance framework, we can only propose, iterate, and build for the DAO’s needs.
Like I mentioned above, the monthly cost doesn’t directly map to salaries (Locked GNO, overhead, risk) and is intended as a long-term incentive alignment. Our compensation is well within market rates — $5k/mo is not realistic for senior engineers. The comparison to rotki is also misguided since you’re building a for-profit product, whereas our mandate here is solely to build for the DAO without generating scalable revenue from our efforts. The analogy is closer to an agency, which wouldn’t typically break down costs based on individual salaries. In my opinion, the tendency in DAOs to focus on this leads to misaligned incentives for service providers to be economically viable: inflating personnel/hours, outsourcing work, hiring cheaper contributors. That’s antithetical to our approach.
We think the mandate, goals, and team expectations are clear, and it’s up to us to prove the value to the DAO. We believe it’ll quickly become evident that our efforts return multiples of our cost to the DAO.
I see. Thank you for your comments but no I disagree. I think the requested compensation is extremely high for the amount of people and the open-ended scope is just too broad and not well defined for a 2 year scope.
I can’t in good conscience vote for this, so I will be voting against it.
I would be glad to reconsider if you at any point address those points.
At Kleros Coop we have decided to vote FOR this proposal. We will vote through our delegate @SEEDLatam cf this Twitter thread.
Even if the budget is in the high range, we think the opportunity cost of doing nothing is just too high. In our opinion, Gnosis Guild is a good candidate for the stewardship of Gnosis DAO and fostering key governance innovations like Futarchy.