He’s against the fee split and very passionately so. Can’t blame him given the cash grabs through governance processes seen on Uniswap, etc and even the Coop.
The open nature of defi will automatically optimize for what’s most sensible: the optimum fee split or penalizing DPI for being unreasonable or penalizing the Coop for being unreasonable. I don’t see what he suggested as “stealing”. I think you’re great fit for the Coop ncitron.
Let’s not question @ncitron’s place in the Coop just because he expressed an opinion.
The community’s greatest strength is our ability to have honest discussions in a public forum. Values of openness, inclusion and empathy are central to our guiding principles. It is worth reminding ourselves of these principles when we are having these difficult discussions.
Thanks for clarifying the amount of work that this will take, it’s so much easier to judge these things when all the information is out in the open. I’m curious how the product team are accounting for the work required, and making it clear to the community what the prioritisation looks like based on this and other factors? @overanalyser@catjam@puniaviision
Feels like we still need better visibility on the lineup holistically, rather than voting on each proposal yes/no as and when they reach DG2.
PAY isn’t a Titans of Data’s product, but I thought I’d share my perspective as a methodologist on some of the interactions between @ncitron , @scott_lew_is , and @afromac in this thread.
Firstly, I’ll just say that Noah is a absolutely a highly valued member of the community and one of the key smart contract engineers who would likely play a big role in developing PAY from an engineering perspective.
With that said, Noah you said two things that make working with Index Coop dreadful for methodologists.
1. Unreliable Negotiating Partner:
I’m not saying you should not be able to voice your opinion or that the existing process for negotiating fee splits is good (it’s not), but at some point the community needs to defer to the expertise of the Business Development working group.
BD is the owner of these conversations and is accountable for their outcomes. If the community is unhappy with those outcomes, there needs to be some mechanism for that feedback to go to BD who represents the Index Coop, not the methodologist.
Having just been through these conversations myself, it’s nerve-wracking and painful to go through ~3-4 weeks of negotiations to get to an agreement with BD, which is already painfully slow, just to have community members who are not intimately familiar with the details throw the agreement into question at the 1-yard line.
As a methodologist, this is the kind of comment that makes me fearful of working with Index Coop. When I first started building DATA, this was a fear that I had - if I’m doing everything transparently, couldn’t someone just steal my idea and make all of my effort wasted? Ultimately, I decided that was a risk worth taking because of the power of the community.
At this point, DFP and Matthew Graham have been developing PAY for something like 6+ months (the initial SYI proposal was near end of March). Why should methodologists invest their time, energy, and resources with Index Coop if the community is just going to steal their ideas anyhow?
Methodologists can, and will, take their methodologies outside of Index Coop if there are not strong norms around IP ownership of methodologies.
A note on the community and guiding principles:
It often feels to me that “we interact with empathy” is put on a pedestal above all the guiding principles in this community.
If I’m putting myself in @scott_lew_is and DFP’s shoes, the Index Coop is not living up to these guiding principles:
How can a methodologist feel like they belong in community with unreliable negotiations? How can they feel safe if the community is threatening to steal their ideas?
I just want to really emphasise this point to the community that this is what is sometimes referred to as fintech out the front defi out the back. It potentially bridges the world of defi with real-world finance bringing the potential of defi to mainstream adoption. For example… Want to earn interest on your fiat dollars in your Revolut* app? The Revolut* front end would plug into defi out the back and earn the yield available from PAY. The everyday user would potentially not even know they are interacting with defi.
When you think about how many people in the world have a savings account and the amount of money in circulation the size of the addressable market here cannot be overstated enough. And that’s just retail. The institutional market is equally just as mind-boggling.
*Revolut is just an illustrative example. I am not aware of any/what integrations have been pre-arranged.
I don’t think BD’s opinion on a fee split that has never seen the eyes of the community is anything more than an opinion at this point. I hope that is not read as a slight on BD, it is not. You are right that the Coop needs to get more organized as a negotiating partner - I actually don’t think that should be BD alone, but rather a cross-functional group with community buy-in and that the negotiation should happen at a very specific point in the process after community feedback.
But this is not the point in time that the community needs to fall in line with an approval from BD. This is the first time the community is seeing a proposed fee split from the methodologists.
So ya, I think you are totally right that the Coop needs to have better organization here, but Noah was completely in line and in the right (as the one with the highest engineering context) to voice that he is not in support of the fee split at this point in time.
I want to start my reply by stating that I currently have no intention of proposing an index that competes with PAY. I apologize if my earlier comment insinuated that this was something I actively had in the works.
I want to respond to @Thomas_Hepner’s concern about IP theft. I think a good methodologist is for the most part protected from this issue. Methodologists are not paid for their initial idea, but rather for their ongoing work establishing partnerships, marketing, and distribution channels. This work inherently has a value that justifies the fee split. If a potential methodologist proposes a new product and provides just an idea and some proposed asset allocations, they are not really bringing anything to the table.
What would we do if a weak methodologist proposed an index, brought nothing to the table, and wanted a high proportion of the fees for themselves? Would we be barred from doing a similar product with a new methodologist or completely in-house just because they came up with the initial idea? Of course not. If we had that as a policy every methodologist would propose an absurd split and strongarm us into deciding whether to do the index with them or not at all.
I am not meaning to insinuate that the above case is a parallel with what is happening right now with PAY. DFP and Matthew Graham are valued methodologists who bring a great deal to the table. If we were to attempt to do a similar index without them, we would be worse off. I am however willing to say that at a 50% split, I believe that the methodologist would be receiving more than they are giving. If there is no risk of a competing index emerging with a fairer fee split, DFP has no incentive to negotiate for a mutually beneficial solution.
Finally, I would like to agree with @jdcook’s point that BD’s offer has never been viewed by the community. Furthermore, it has never been viewed by EWG, who are responsible for understanding the costs and complexity of the index. I want to be very explicit about the costs here. With PAY’s current composition, building the infrastructure for this index will likely take a couple of months for EWG to complete. I don’t think this cost was fully understood when negotiating the split.
Great call out. We have been discussing a few ideas here, would welcome any you have as well. As we move forward, context and options in the voting process are key. PWG is looking to tackle this after receiving community approval/feedback on the onboarding process (to be published this week.)
I’m not personally up to speed on all of the work required to launch PAY, will refrain on commenting on that specifically.
I just wanted to re-iterate my stance above that I don’t believe the initial discussions with BD, before anyone in the community knowing they were happening, should be representative of a final decision on the fee split of this product.
I acknowledge that is on the Coop and is not a great experience for the PAY methodologists. My intent is not to make this process unnecessarily more difficult, but to ensure the Coop makes these foundational decisions with all the information at hand.
I am not even saying I am necessarily against 50/50 - I am not educated enough on the ENG scope and ongoing maintenance to say at this point - and that is the issue. It is clear that the ENG team, the team that will have to put in the most work to get PAY launched, hasn’t had a clear opportunity to assess this product and weigh in on the scope and the fee split.
How can we have a fresh look at this and still move quickly? My thinking is a cross-functional team to put forward a recommendation in response to the proposed 50/50 fee split by the end of the week.
Let’s pick this up in the weekly calls and go over the contents of this thread.
The next forum post around fee split should be a combined Methodologist and a more widely IC supported post. Bridging the knowledge gaps is key and open communication is enabler.
Hi Everyone, quick update on the status of PAY. The Engineering team is doing an analysis of the PRD (Product Requirement Document) to understand how much development effort will be required. At the same time, we’re working with the methodologist on a mutually beneficial fee split. Things are going well and we will provide an update when we’ve moved to the next step int he process.
Providing another brief update. As many of you heard in the weekly call today, PAY is currently blocked pending negotiations with DFP. We’re continuing to talk though many of the decisions required to launch the product, but will not be progressing the product at this moment. We’ll provide an update once this has been resolved.
Hi everyone, quick update. We’re still waiting on negotiations for DFP but the engineering team is actively working through the technical pieces for this product. We’ll provide an update on negotiations and DG2 when it becomes available.
I am currently researching various DAO treasury allocation, PAY looks like it will fulfill the need for treasury diversification VIA stablecoins. I’ve noticed the first step for most treasuries is to move into a stable coin in order to secure a DAO funding runway for 2-3 years.