xDai team project involvement: past and future

General Gnosis Chain
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Summary

Following the token merger (STAKE to GNO), the former xDai team has finalized the transfer of infrastructure and assets to the GnosisDAO technology team. While many prior responsibilities of the team have been reallocated to GnosisDAO core team members, xDai team engineers are still interested in working on a focused scope of activities including:

  • Technical support for the consensus layer/execution layer (GBC/GC) merge
  • Rollup research, analysis and support
  • Open-source explorer development – Blockscout
  • Participation in select ecosystem working groups
  • Research on trustless bridges
  • Security issue consultation
  • Gnosis Beacon Chain validator support

This post provides an overview of the infrastructure transfer to date. It will be followed by a snapshot temperature check for the community to determine if they would like to see the former xDai team continue working on this focused scope or would prefer to keep these tasks in-house with the internal Gnosis core team.

What has been accomplished

The token merger has involved physical and knowledge transfer of many important items from the xDai operations team to the Gnosis team. Gnosis is now responsible for the ownership and management of all essential chain operations. The following have been transferred from xDai to Gnosis:

  1. Public RPC endpoint hosting and maintenance
  2. Gnosis Beacon Chain explorer
  3. Bridge infrastructure management
  4. Bridge governance management
  5. Project GitHub repositories
  6. Validator onboarding processes
  7. Public facing websites, domains, and hosting
  8. Documentation sites
  9. Marketing activities and business development
  10. Community management
  11. Social media accounts (Twitter, Discord, Substack)
  12. Immunefi Bug Bounty Program
  13. Listings on Centralized Exchanges (Huobi, AscendEX, Gate.io)
  14. Revenue from compounding and fees on xDai Bridge
  15. Revenue from compounding and fees on Omni Bridge on ETH<>GC, ETH<>BSC bridges
  16. Revenue from gas fees collected by EIP-1559 implementation on Gnosis Chain

Moving Forward

Now that primary daily operations are under Gnosis control, the former xDai team is assessing options for future involvement. Their engineering team is interested in continued work, research, and consultation in several specific areas outlined below.

Consensus layer/Execution layer (Gnosis Beacon Chain / Gnosis Chain ) Merge

The merge is fast approaching and there are many moving pieces to the upgrade. While it will be coordinated and executed by the Gnosis internal team, the xDai team would be available for technical consultation, assistance, and troubleshooting preceding and following the merge.

  • Provide technical support for merge preparation and execution
  • Consult as needed on technical questions and issues
  • Provide expertise and answer questions related to the current GC/GBC implementations which were developed and deployed by the xDai team
  • Conduct research on related merge topics and best practices within the ecosystem

Rollup research, analysis and support

L2 rollups are an area of continued interest. Optimism on Gnosis Chain is experiencing increasing volume and projects are exploring rollup environments. The xDai team spearheaded these deployments and would like to continue with their development and optimization.

  • Analyze usage and perform stress testing on current implementations
  • Tune parameters to maximize throughput
  • Explore interoperability between L1/L2 environments
  • Research zk rollups and deploy test environments for further research

Open-source explorer – Blockscout

Blockscout has been the primary explorer for Gnosis Chain since its inception. Updates, new feature implementation and ongoing support should be prioritized for Gnosis Chain execution-layer environments.

  • Hosting and supporting Blockscout instances for Gnosis Chain and Gnosis Chain Testnet on Blockscout’s premises
  • Rebranding of Blockscout to follow the new Gnosis Chain brand guidelines
  • Premium modules such as Blockscout Account, Smart contract verification, App store, etc.
  • Priority support and priority updates
  • Blockscout for Optimism on Gnosis Chain (unofficial deployment of Optimism)

Participation in select ecosystem working groups

To stay up-to-date with current deployments, issues and other relevant topics the team would maintain participation in certain working groups.

  • Participate in relevant groups at the xDai team’s discretion.
  • Retain access to new and existing workgroups and leave extraneous groups.

Research on trustless bridges

Trustless bridges are an exciting area of research relevant to the Gnosis Beacon Chain implementation. We would explore methods and work towards a proof-of-concept bridge that does not need relayers when moving assets between Ethereum and Gnosis Chain.

  • Research and define requirements for trustless bridge implementation
  • Establish working model and PoC

Security issue consultation

The xDai team has in-depth knowledge and expertise with the current codebase. Should an issue arise the team would be available to research, analyze and consult on possible solutions.

  • Maintain open communication channels related to security concerns
  • Provide assistance and advice should security-related issues arise

Gnosis Beacon Chain validator support

The xDai team has been involved with onboarding for GBC validators since the chain launch. The team would like to continue with onboarding assistance for new validators and community management of the current validator set.

  • Provide assistance to Gnosis Beacon Chain validators in all areas related to initial setup and operations.
  • Community management activities (troubleshooting, recommendations, answering questions, providing resources) for current Gnosis Beacon Chain validators.

Community Input

We would like to hear from the GnosisDAO community about their preferences for continued involvement of the xDai team. Would the community like to support the xDai external team or prefer to incubate and support an internal team managed by Gnosis for the aforementioned activities?

In this advisory format, the xDai team would retain 100% autonomy and responsibilities would be limited to the tasks outlined above. In this capacity, the xDai team would be available for consultation and peer review but would not be responsible for execution or coordination of essential tasks and/or remediation of any bugs/concerns/issues.

In addition to feedback on this post we plan to conduct a snapshot temperature check to gauge community interest in the xDai team continuing to work with the Gnosis team.

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In my limited time with Gnosis, I can say with confidence that the xDai team has played an essential role in establishing a shared context for developing and growing the Gnosis Chain. In my humble opinion, the xDai should absolutely continue to work towards its success.

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Sounds like a great idea. Retaining the collective knowledgebase of both teams would make me all the more confident in the successful development of Gnosis going forward.

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You can find Temperature Check Snapshot vote for this post here: Snapshot

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Thank you for the proposal, Mojmir!

The former xDAI team has been instrumental in the operations and the success of Gnosis Chain. We see big value in continuing with the team, which has accumulated extraordinary knowledge about the technology and ecosystem of the Gnosis Chain. It was always a pleasure to work with Mojmir, Andrew, Alex, Kirill, and Ulyana on the many challenges we are facing as part of the merger.

I am missing a concrete ask from the DAO for the proposal itself. There is no budget assigned to the proposal to pay for salaries etc… In this context, it would also be appreciated to shed some light on the future of the former xDAI ecosystem fund. How are the over 70k GNO supposed to be used going forward? The mission of the ecosystem fund was „A fund designed to support the sustainable, long-term growth of the xDai chain“. The xDAI chain lives on as Gnosis Chain. How does the fund translate?

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Are GNO holders on Gnosis Chain now able to vote, or still only GNO holders on Ethereum? If not, none of the original POA Network and xDaiChain will be able to show support.

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You can vote with GNO on Gnosis Chain.

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I am clearly in support of having the xDAI Team on board long term. I joined xDAI/Stake long before the take over happened and wasn’t too excited about it. Having the xDAI Team still on board makes it feel more like a merge and this is, besides all the technical expertise, a huge value for the whole project.

But the snapshot voting seems to be flawed , I get an error message (Your voting power could not be calculated. This is often due to a misconfigured strategy or an unresponsive RPC node involved in the strategy), and cause there are no votes up to now I suppose it’s not only me.

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You should have verified your answer as correct before posting. Still unable to vote as noted by others here and in different threads. Is the fix coming?

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Stefan is correct. In normal circumstances, you would be able to vote with your GNO held on the Gnosis Chain. The issue has been identified just recently and it is related to the subgraph used by the strategy not being in sync. The fix is coming but it will still take some time, and as the current vote has already been compromised it is possible that we will make a new one.

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The required snapshot strategy, which allows voting with GNO on Gnosis Chain is in place. The issue is related to the Gnosis Chain indexer, which is now being fixed.

Your question hinted you were unsure if Gnosis Chain GNO would be allowed for the voting, which is the case. Unfortunately, right now no one case vote on any network. I suggest posting the snapshot poll again, once the issue is fixed.

I hope this answer helps.

Edit: Mojimir was faster :slight_smile:

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The issue has been fixed and now you can vote.

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We released a new snapshot poll, which also includes the role of the former xDAI ecosystem fund:

https://snapshot.org/#/gnosis.eth/proposal/0x5525ab62fffc1102f46fca9ed629ba9a5cd111b1663bd6bb2cb984472325d191

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This post and the initial temperature check on Snapshot were created to gauge community sentiment about the former xDai team’s continued involvement with the Gnosis Chain, and we appreciate those who commented and voted. All in all we did not see the kind of participation either in the discussion or the snapshot voting results (which were delayed but still available for several days with little participation) to suggest a high level of interest in the team continuing with the project.

A second Snapshot and GIP was subsequently created by the community, however it is directly related to earmarking the xDai team’s treasury as the payment source for new tasks and responsibilities. This treasury already supports the former xDai team and is used at the team’s discretion to subsidize development costs across a range of ecosystem products. It is separate from other funding the team might receive (ie from the 400K GnosisDAO has reserved to develop the Gnosis Chain ecosystem and incentivize usage), and suggesting it be used is asking the team to continue working for free with funds they already have.

This is not sustainable, and the former xDai team has made the decision to wind down operations on the Gnosis Chain and complete the handoff to the Gnosis team. Fortunately, most responsibilities have already been transferred/consolidated over the previous 6 months and Gnosis has assembled a strong team that is prepared and well-positioned for success and substantial future growth.

The former xDai team will continue with Blockscout explorer development/support for the time being and will continue to participate in relevant joint groups. Other tasks defined in the temperature check will not be worked on by the team and individual team members will not be directly available to contact for work requests. A communication channel will be maintained between the two teams where discussions can occur as needed, and a communication intermediary will interface with the two teams to support effective and efficient communication.

While the initial process has been more complicated than anticipated our hope is the Gnosis Chain will see success and continue to flourish under Gnosis leadership. We look forward to the next chapters for both teams.

-The former xDai team

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Hello Andrew–

this is unfortunate, and I as well as a quick survey of other long-term POA and xDaiChain participants hope the team will reconsider. I believe many here have been waiting for a new temperature check snapshot poll to be released by the xDaiTeam once the initial one expired, since voting was not possible for xDaiChain holders (or maybe anyone?) when the ballot was first issued.

The second ballot was released as a GIP ballot, apparently not by the xDai Team, and significantly different than the first. No idea what this is about.

Thanks again for the update, Andrew, and please let us here know if there are factors the Community can help influence to impact this decision.

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Really sad to read this, was in hope for another outcome. After calming down my scepticism in the last months this feels a bit like a flashback to the time the takeover plans came to my attention first.

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a flashback to the time the takeover plans came to my attention first.

The goal of the new management team is to replace everything the former xDai team worked on with new contractors, preferably “blue chips” or organizations related to GnosisDAO such as Gnosis Builders.

I see the point in replacing the current solutions but there is an elephant in the room. The network is drying up in terms of transactions and fees, projects moving out, and new narratives are weak. After a while, we’re likely to see an empty (or with “free capacity” if we think positively) second tier network with a tooling set “just like everyone else”. Instead of spending time on keeping it up and exploring new niches we are offered fast food and exodus.

Yes, the network will very likely have Ethereum consensus with all its advantages and problems, but so will other networks that adapt it in the future. Starting work on the transition to Ethereum 2.0 a year ago was a research, now the plans for merge are already in the main branch of most consensus clients. By the end of this year, junior developers will be running modified PoS Ethereum on Free Tier hosting and sending VC theses - faster, cheaper, with the same level of security as Ethereum thanks to horizontally scalable consensus. With a new token.

Yes, Ethereum consensus is nice, but what’s about such a PoS consensus with 10mm capitalization, with upgradable deposit contract and almost centralized bridge (Gnosis+1) for staking token, managed by a small exclusive group of people? Are 133m in stables (and 200mm in altcoins) bridged to Gnosis Chain safe to be protected by 10mm staked in consensus? I hope the numbers will be different before the swap of consensus.

Consensus itself was not the main thesis of xDai though POSDAO had innovations such as evenly distributed rewards between validators pools, on-chain upgradability, RANDAO on consensus layers, rewards in both stable and volatile token for validators. The move to Ethereum 2.0 consensus was needed for a long-term 5-10 year development program for the xDai network, not for the sister chain narrative that new management is trying to push with replacement of the former xDai team with new coordinators.

There are many questions to ask to the new management and “takeover” is one of them. The merger proposal was mostly about assets such as tokens merge (STAKE/GNO), fees and revenue transition, rebranding (xDai to Gnosis Chain) and tokenomics but not about the future work of teams (who is the CEO? how decisions are made? who has veto power? which organizations do what? etc). That was our of scope of the proposal and should’ve been worked out later. It’s not a surprise to me that most Swiss cheese model checkboxes for teams integrations are set to fail during the 6 months of merger.

According to Harvard Business Review between 70% and 90% of mergers and acquisitions fail. It’s a shocking number, and the one thing all have in common is people. Mergers and acquisitions fail more often than not because key people leave, teams don’t get along or demotivation sets into the company being acquired.

Meanwhile, the token merger was incredibly successful with over 90% of tokens swapped. You can read more about the merger results in the What has been accomplished section. I am very proud that we (former xDai team) achieved all tangible goals of the merger. :white_check_mark:

I wish Gnosis team all the best and will look closely for their progress.

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This whole thing is sad, since I still don’t know what Gnosis actually wants to achieve. Or perhaps I have not read or seen enough. Would be nice if soneone just explained to us normies what the roadmap to where is…

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Would be nice if soneone just explained to us normies what the roadmap to where is…

The roadmap created by the former xDai team can be found here, but it does not reflect the changes associated with the change of plans after the merger. Gnosis Chain | Gnosis Chain
AFAIK there is no roadmap published for Gnosis Chain after the new management is in charge.

Some information on the new management’s plans is available on social media and perhaps this is a way to learn about their plans https://twitter.com/koeppelmann/status/1536446355119431684

  • the merge of Gnosis Chain and Gnosis Beacon Chain to prove utility of GNO token. Without withdrawals, which is the next phase after the merge the token is just a governance token
  • making Gnosis’s wallet a first class citizen on Gnosis Chain
  • help fund and promote another Gnosis’s wallet Circles which is developing Universal Basic Income application, unfortunately with no Income and no obvious plans to get it without donations
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or https://twitter.com/koeppelmann/status/1530572455915438082

  • migrate GBC (Gnosis Beacon Chain) to single slot finality. This entails a risky experiment on a production network. But it’s not new for the new management. E.g. when former xDai team decided to launch GBC some parameters were irresponsibly overridden by the new management without consideration of effects on the GBC nor testing it. Now validators with more than 64 validators per node have ~10 Tb of outgoing data per node which is making hosting significantly more expensive.
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