Hi Gnosis Community!
I am writing on behalf of Thanefield Capital, a prop trading firm specializing in both quantitative and thesis-driven strategies. As holders of GNO, we think that Gnosis DAO does a great job at creating value. We appreciate the strategic thinking and synergies being developed between Gnosis Chain, Gnosis Pay, a substantial treasury professionally managed by @Karpatkey, DAO’s VC portfolio, and spun-off projects. However, we’d like to initiate a conversation about the transparency of Gnosis DAO’s treasury management. Despite significant efforts by Karpatkey to enhance transparency, we believe that more can be done.
In recent months, we have observed Karpatkey executing GNO buybacks through TWAP orders, limit orders, and OTC transactions. Separately, @mkoeppelmann has proposed using high-ROI venture deals for the buyback of GNO, and thanks to Karpatkey for keeping us updated on this initiative. We are strongly in favor of returning value to GNO token holders, especially now, as GNO appears to be trading below its book value when considering the illiquid assets. In our view, increased transparency of the DAO’s holdings is another considerable value driver that will benefit all stakeholders of Gnosis DAO. We’ve seen interest from other parties in this issue, for instance, some of our concerns mirror some of the questions raised earlier by @gno-investor.
Gnosis DAO wallets
In its reports, Karpatkey lists only two wallets, from which active treasury management is conducted – one on the Ethereum mainnet and one on the Gnosis Chain. However, in this forum post, Karpatkey requests delegation of Gnosis DAO’s GEL and vCOW, located on the following wallets: wallet 1 (GEL), wallet 2 (vCOW). The vCOW holdings were acquired as a result of the spinoff of the CoW protocol, but we have absolutely no information about GEL and wouldn’t have known about the DAO holding it if it weren’t for this forum post. This naturally raises questions:
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Do these wallets belong to Gnosis DAO?
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Are they managed by Karpatkey?
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If so, why are they not included in Karpatkey’s reports?
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What is the comprehensive list of wallets that hold Gnosis DAO’s assets?
VC investments
There is very little transparency on the investments made over the years on behalf Gnosis DAO. Karpatkey promised us “a comprehensive document” three months ago, yet we have seen no follow-up.
As we know, in-house Factor VC was established as a result of GIP 38. Two days ago it started transferring funds to the Gnosis DAO’s wallet managed by Karpatkey, which we believe is part of the winding-down process. We understand that the process takes time and that a complete and precise breakdown of investments might not be available until its completion. However, it would be helpful for the community to know what’s the timeline and what’s the status of this process.
In addition, there have been several investments not made through Factor but directly by the DAO itself. Gelato, as previously mentioned, appears to be one of these cases. Furthermore, from multiple sources, we have identified the following investments made on behalf of Gnosis, not through Factor:
- Zerion
- IDEX
- Gearbox
- RabbitHole
- Coinshift
- MatterLabs
- Monerium
- Snapshot Labs
Additionally, @mkoeppelmann mentioned DAO’s possession of TICK in his recent blog post. We don’t know what TICK is and where it’s held.
We would appreciate more detailed information about these and any other investments that we may not have discovered.