What is autonomy?

[mel.eth]

There have been some interesting things, both proposed and happening, in the name of ‘autonomy’ lately 1, 2, 3. Given that these happenings are resource-heavy in a resource-constrained DAO, I’d like to take a step back and get a sense as to whether we’re all aligned in regard to the concept, as I’m not certain we are at this juncture.

What is autonomy?

As the dictionary defines it as being self-governed, especially the right of self-governance. I’m not going to expand on this as it’s crystal clear.

Is The Index Cooperative Autonomous?

No. We have a robust governance system in operation; we are dependent on Set administratively as they hold the keys to the wallet, thus IC cannot independently execute the results of our established governance process.

What needs to happen to unlock full autonomy?

The governance process:
The process is currently handled in-part 2/3 part by Set employees (@anon10525910 and @dylan) and 1/3 non-Set Owls (@Pepperoni_Joe). This proposal to add two more Owls would in theory replace the Set-Owls with non-Set Owls, yielding full autonomy in this regard. [@mel.eth’s mental-model: current autonomy score = 33%; roadmap to 100% = in-progress]

The execution of governance-based results:
In the last few days we had the addition of @DarkForestCapital and @anon10525910 to the Funding Council multi-sig and the proposed addition of a 5th Funding Council Member (need some clarity here as @puniaviision is listed on the latter proposal but not the first, am I conflating TC and FC?). This is still very a permissioned system as it is a 2/3 multi-sig with 2 Set employees and 1 non-Set Owl, but it’s a step in the right direction. Until the Index Coop is in full control of community treasury assets, we are not capable of executing the results of most IIPs without permission. [@mel.eth’s mental-model: current autonomy score = 0%; roadmap: 12 months to IC control]

That’s it, right?
Yes, according to the dictionary definiton. This inevitably leads to some further discussion relating to who has the most influence within the forthcoming permissionless governance system, but that goes to sustainability, tokenomics, governance parameters, and token distribution . . . not autonomy.

What are Set’s remaining non-zero permissioning-levels and reasoning for same?

This is an open question to @setoshi and the Set team, and additionally the narrow mandate of the Autonomy Group. I would like to see the Autonomy Group provide a comprehensive list of blockers to autonomy as narrowly defined and planned expeditious resolution for same following the next meeting of the group (for example, 12-months seems excessive in terms of timing, can this be expedited?). While I appreciate the thought that went into the suggestions set forth by @Pepperoni_Joe regarding a council, and the suggestions that unlocking token allocations relate to autonomy, these are operational considerations not to be conflated with the subject of our right and ability to self-govern. We do ourselves a disservice by trying to solve multiple complex problems simultaneously.

Flagging remaining members of Autonomy Group for visibility: @Etienne @Matthew_Graham

[Thomas_Hepner]

Hey @mel.eth - thank you for the thoughtful post in regards to Autonomy.

Just wanted to point out that the key deliverable from the Autonomy Group is an Autonomy Roadmap by August 25th.

@Thomas_Hepner

Key Action: Formation of Autonomy Kick-Off Group by 27th of July.

Deliverable: Initial Autonomy Roadmap by 25th of August.

Recommendation: Recurring monthly forum post and “All-Hands” meeting led by the to-be-formed Autonomy Kick-Off Group for public accountability.

It’s great we’re already seeing engagement around issues concerning Autonomy from @Pepperoni_Joe and @setoshi in community calls and in the forums, as it seems like they are listening to community and incorporating feedback into crafting an Autonomy Roadmap.

I’m itching for a Roadmap too, but want to make sure the community is giving the group the time and space they need to bring forward a well-researched proposal given that the timeline set was for August 25th.

[Matthew_Graham]

Hi @mel.eth,

Great post and the topic here really resonate with me. My personal view is the genesis token distribution is unfair and mis represents the relative value each group brings to building out Index Coop.

The elephant in the room is the 28% Set Labs allocation. The product that lead to Index Coop’s existence came from DeFi Pulse and they received 2% for it up front and a head start at the methodologist rewards by being first out the gate. Even with 9.5% to DeFi Pulse and 28% to Set Labs in the same sentence - it reads really lop sided, doesn’t it!

28% Set Labs to me is clearly an issue. The 52.5% the community has largely been spent to date growing the protocol and we are all aware of the tens of millions spent on liquidity mining which is many, many multiples more than what we have paid to the community. The metal owls, make the community what it is today and give it an economic value. Products don’t scale or sell themselves. But the community receives the least ownership and does the majority of the work.

The genesis distribution.

My thoughts, we have a discussion about redirecting part of Set Labs Year 1 vesting contract and all of the Year 2 and Year 3 vesting contracts to the community Treasury. The community then determines a way to retrospective distribute some, or all, the tokens to past and present contributors. A fair amount of ownership for Set Labs in my opinion is maximum 10%.

The 1 Year Set Labs vesting contract is 14%, the Year 2 and Year 3 vesting contracts are 8.4% and 5.6% respectively. We should recognise the value of the community, we should revisit our genesis contract and we should distribute more to the community. We should also restructure the methodologist program into something sustainable and the INDEX from the Set Labs vesting contract gives the community capital to work with.

The alternative is to fire up the printing press and mint INDEX tokens to be distributed to the community. But given we mint tokens from nothing when we extract fees on our product, this is not an ideal way to go about it. If we do a federal reserve on our governance token, we can do a federal reserve on tour clients who hold our products. We should probably burn the keys if we have not already.

And yes some Full Timers have been discussion minting INDEX tokens for a Yearn style solution. My idea presented above has been pitched several times to Full Timers and various fellow metal owls. The idea received caution but no blockers. Perhaps too bold, perhaps no one wants to risk their political capital by being the face of such a bold challenge.

I am going out on a limb by publishing this and my opinion is my own. I am driven by my values, my principles and I will always voice what I believe is right, independent of who it affects. I honestly believe the right thing to do is revisit the genesis contract. 28% to a single entity (including the community) is straight up wrong in my opinion. I am also aware there will be unspoken consequences for publishing this post and that just motivates me to do what I think is right. Community first.

The above is an example of what moving the Year 2 and Year 3 Set Labs vesting contracts to the community could look like. 14% spread evenly over 60 people is 0.23% each, or 0.07% per year over 3 years. Not an ideal methodology as it fails to compensate contributors for their relative contributions, but it gives a flavour and moves Index Coop closer to a fair launch model. There is also the added benefit of being able to dissolve the Full Time systems and move to a holistic vesting philosophy for all owls with adjusted monthly rewards. We can create community ownership, we can have a fair renumeration program that compensates for relative contribution towards growing the community.

We can also expand the methodologist program by dipping into the 1 Year Set Labs vesting contract and move towards something potentially more sustainable. This is another burning topic which can be addressed.

This idea addresses a genesis bias towards a single entity, builds community ownership, enables overhauling the contributor rewards process eliminating the bias divide and can strengthen the methodologist program well beyond the initial 18 months design lifespan.

Let’s do a sentiment check. IT IS A PRIVATE POLL

Vote:

• FOR Revisiting the Genesis Contract Distribution
• FOR Redistributing INDEX from Set Labs to Contributors
• FOR Making this a priority for Q3
• FOR Putting this idea in the round filling cabinet
• FOR Reducing Set Labs ownership via vesting contracts to 10% or less
• FOR Making this an Autonomy Group Priority

[verto0912]

@Matthew_Graham

And yes some Full Timers have been discussion minting INDEX tokens for a Yearn style solution.

Just in case you are referring to our conversation in Discord here, I would like to clarify that by Yearn style solution I meant a retrospective distribution to the community / contributors and NOT minting more tokens. I’m not aware of anyone who wants to mint more tokens but perhaps there are some folks who do.

[mel.eth]

This allocation visualized is really powerful; thanks for putting this together @Matthew_Graham. I will note that the allocation in my view impinges greatly on our sustainability, but not directly on our autonomy (I’m happy to discuss this view more, but it’s more order-of-operations than prioritization if that makes sense). Essentially I would like to avoid allowing the allocation discussion be a blocker to putting control of the community treasury in the hands of the community. That said, the the founding allocation is outsized.

@setoshi

Re: allocation, we believe in fairness. If we do not live up / earn the slotted allocation, we will be glad to make adjustments / reparations. That said, it is still too early to be able to judge what everyone’s contributions actually look like yet.

I have already signaled that I’m FOR revisiting the initial allocation. Set’s failure to engage in our community’s governance process (instead circumventing it and monopolizing the time of some of our most hard-working Owls) distracts us all from what we’re trying to achieve here. I believe a founder, at a minimum, should provide a bootstrapping scheme that is considered fair and gives the DAO the greatest chance of success.

An argument could be made that Set’s initial technical support of The Coop has been more involved than other DAO/Founder launch-schemes, but no one has actually made that argument yet (I’m open to it - a common argument I’ve heard re Set’s involvement relates to ‘hands-off’ as a feature, but that’s gone wayward), so in my view the fact remains that our biggest constraint over the last 3+ months has been access to engineering resources, for which we pay. Set is in the best possible position to support The Coop, and instead we’re vigorously and successfully building out the aspects of The Coop for which Set is well-tooled because of Set’s failure to adequately do so, despite their heavy founding allocation. What we seem to be finding is that a large equity allocation that is effectively ‘in the bank’ is not a motivating a reward scheme for this particular founder.

Personally, I see a 28% allocation for a founder that hasn’t been engaged in the forum for over 4 months, has remained largely def to our resource constraints, and now depletes resources further by failing to meet us where we are at. I’m a firm believer that entities should draw power from their accomplishments, and while Set stood us up sufficiently, the momentum The Coop has gained has come entirely from within and that needs to be reflected in the shared reward - as I don’t see a community effectively paying a 28% tax with no commensurate benefit (reward structures should incentivize: direction, acceleration, and interaction - Set’s static allocation has failed to meaningfully align them to The Coop).

In my view, Set’s failures as a founder have done more to harden this DAO into an autonomous beast of self-sustainability and autonomy than perhaps more hand-in-hand support would have. How Set chooses to engage from this point forward has the ability to significantly help or harm this DAO - I think about that several times a day, “This DAO that I’ve chosen to dedicate my full-time to can be largely harmed at the whim of one man.” . . . and that’s really not something any Owl working at this reportedly community-lead and -driven organization should have to carry around. Set isn’t helping drive us toward autonomy, at best they’re a speedbump in that regard, at worst a giant boulder blocking the road. All this to say that I’m not surprised there are discussions happening among those with the most context around the issue regarding how to mitigate a catastrophic failure.

Thank you @Thomas_Hepner - I’m still hopeful in the process taking place - mainly because I feel as though we have no choice but to leave our collective fate up to 3 Owls (desperation-fueled-hope, woohoo). I see these discussions around autonomy as a way for Set to push an agenda without engaging with the larger community, but nothing meaningful is yet to be suggested (besides a spartan council which had already floated), so I’ll wait to see what comes of all this. And I appreciate you airing this @Matthew_Graham; I think having the keys to our own cheese is perhaps the most important step (as Set has control of more than 28% currently, including our treasury) but I’m happy to see this topic still very much on the table; I think gauging sentiment at this stage, given that a roadmap is imminent, is appropriate.

[chopper]

@Matthew_Graham As a new token holder and potential contributor apologise if I have missed the thread.

• Have seen limited technical discussion of Set Labs interaction with Indexcoop. Am I missing a discussion forum somewhere ? I assume given the size of the holding in INDEX they are doing a load of work behind the scenes.

[Pepperoni_Joe]

Some great discussion and reflections here @mel.eth.

You make an interesting point that “the right or condition of self-government” is “crystal clear” and relates primarily to the fact…

@mel.eth

we are dependent on Set administratively as they hold the keys to the wallet, thus IC cannot independently execute the results of our established governance process.

I disagree with this premise.

I see the question of autonomy as being a much broader discussion. It should be about facilitating our community to think about what sort of organization we want Index to be in the future.

The group should answer questions such as:

• How do we prevent our governance process from being captured by third parties (at the moment it is)
• How do we elect our leaders (our leadership is unelected full timers + Set)
• How do we ensure we are financially autonomous and sustainable? (Set decided Q3 priorities)
• How do we ensure engineering autonomy? (we are still dependant on Set for dev resource)
• How do we ensure a representative, free and diverse leadership team who are accountable to contributors? (again, our leadership is unelected full-time contributors + Set)

It may feel the scope of the autonomy conversation has expanded past what was initially conceived. It has.

Why?

Having spent 100+ hours reflecting on this question - it is clear that to truly address autonomy (and not just stick on bandaid) we as a community have to come together to address some fundamental questions about how we want to be structured, how we manage risk, how we plan and how we want to coordinate or be led.

Only then can Set and DFP really understand what they are handing over power to. Thus, only by tackling the bigger picture of what “Index 2.0” looks like can we be truly autonomous

[Metfanmike]

No one could ever argue this community isn’t up for having hard conversations.

Re: Genesis Distribution

I agree with you @Matthew_Graham: 28% for one entity seems like a lot for a decentralized organization. It feels off. And it only feels more off as we move through time. We should revisit.

But to this point from Felix in October 2020 that Mel shared…

@setoshi

Re: allocation, we believe in fairness. If we do not live up / earn the slotted allocation, we will be glad to make adjustments/reparations. That said, it is still too early to be able to judge what everyone’s contributions actually look like yet.

…there was an acknowledgement that this could happen.

In fact, this happens with early-stage startups all the time. There is an initial split amongst the founders, but after a period of time, it’s clear that the initial split is not fair…and it’s adjusted (with varying degrees of drama). I was dealing with this just yesterday, as a CPG startup I’ve been advising finally memorialized an adjustment to the initial founder split after months of negotiations and back-and-forth.

So. Damn. Typical.

And that’s the positive takeaway here: this is basically standard operating procedure. So I frankly very much appreciate that @setoshi is mindful this happens, and if there is good reason to have this conversation, that Set will have it. There is (understandably) a lot of angst in this thread and in some other conversations I’ve had, but until we’re told by Set that this is not a topic to revisit, I am going to take what Felix wrote at full face value and trust that Set is up for the convo. I’ve only seen them be open to this autonomy chat fwiw.

Re: Goals for Autonomy

@mel.eth

The governance process:
The process is currently handled in-part 2/3 part by Set employees (@gregdocter and @dylan) and 1/3 non-Set Owls (@Pepperoni_Joe). This proposal to add two more Owls would in theory replace the Set-Owls with non-Set Owls, yielding full autonomy in this regard. [@mel.eth’s mental-model: current autonomy score = 33%; roadmap to 100% = in-progress]

While I am for a fairer INDEX distribution, is 100% removal of Set from key processes an autonomy goal? That’s what I’m taking away from this. That feels extreme but in the other direction. Am I misunderstanding what you meant, @mel.eth? Please jump in if so.

I thought our central autonomy goal was to ensure that a minority entity didn’t have majority influence over our operations, finances, prioritization, and decision-making. But Set is still a valued part of the community. Their technology is invaluable for what we do. They should have a seat at the table.

Re: other ideas in this thread

• The idea of minting new tokens as a fix is very unsettling. It seems antithetical to the ethos of this industry to introduce dilution/inflation. I know it was thrown out as a straw man, but just seconding @Matthew_Graham that we should avoid this.

• If we can sort these issues out in a timely fashion, ideally whatever has been earned can be kept while also properly incentivizing future participation. I personally voted for everything above with the exception of 1) “filing cabinet” (lol) but also 2) the “Reduce Set’s ownership to 10% or less” because I believe that would mean they might have to give back tokens already earned. Or that there wouldn’t be much left for them to earn (thus removing continued incentivization). To use the startup case studies again, one tactic that I’ve seen used is an extension of the vesting period. So - just making up numbers - if Set owned 8% outright currently, there would still be a way for them to get to a (reduced) 15% target, but the vesting would be slowed/extended so it would cover the initial three-year period to reach that reduced stake. That will help fix the absolute figures while ensuring there is still a strong incentive to keep infusing value.

@Thomas_Hepner

I’m itching for a Roadmap too, but want to make sure the community is giving the group the time and space they need to bring forward a well-researched proposal given that the timeline set was for August 25th.

Agree with @Thomas_Hepner. We’re not solving anything here in the forums. I more expressing my viewpoint and support for others but am interested to see what the Autonomy arrives at. And to @mel.eth’s point, it’s worthwhile to see where we are aligned (and possibly not) as that proposal is worked out.

[mel.eth]

The purpose of my post @Pepperoni_Joe was to determine whether there is alignment and I see there is not. I wouldn’t call this a difference of opinion; your framing of the concept of autonomy goes well beyond the definition and that stated on the ethereum.org website. I have serious concerns about scope creep.

I would appreciate if you could confirm that:

• The deliverable will be an, “Initial Autonomy Roadmap” delivered by 25 August;
• You are not committing IC person-resources in the name of autonomy beyond the due-date (re workshops etc.);
• That the AG will effectively be dissolved following deliverable turnover; and,
• No representations are being made to Set regarding ongoing representative or centralized leadership within The Coop.

For the remainder of the Autonomy Group’s tenure I would appreciate if you would state whether the views expressed are your own, representative of the group, or representative of DFP and/or Set. I would appreciate if the remaining calls updating the community on the progress of the Autonomy Group summarize the discussions being had, rather than suggesting any further solutions without giving appropriate context. Additionally, please provide a copy the list of concerns and blockers to autonomy as presented by Set. If Set has not turned this list over to IC yet please note that instead.

Flagging remainder of the IC Autonomy Group for visibility: @DarkForestCapital, @Matthew_Graham

[Pepperoni_Joe]

Hi Mel,

Noting that of the three core aspects of a DAO identied on ethereum.org, one is:

@ethereum.org

Member-owned communities without centralized leadership.

Do you feel we have achieved this at Index Coop? If not, by your own definition is “leadership” not an integral question to be considered when thinking about autonomy?

What I feel you have not appreciated is that we currently operate a highly centralized leadership structure comprising of Set + unelected Full-Time contributors. This challenge was a major theme that came out of the Set Autonomy discussion and one I was hoping to explore with the community.

It seems clear from your feedback that the Autonomy Group’s position is now untenable. I will consolidate the next steps and further discussion on the “Formation of a Protocol Ownership Kick-Off Group” thread.

[mel.eth]

@Pepperoni_Joe you misunderstand me, and that’s my fault, I should have been more explicit in the ask. The desired result is that the AG continue their work, you included, just bear in mind the deliverable and limited scope.

Please carry on as what you’re doing is essential, and if you feel a modified leadership structure is integral to the solution please include it on the roadmap, but it seems like there’s a push on your end to execute on a plan that hasn’t been shipped, and I’m noting it and asking you to slow it down and make sure you’re reporting into the community re the initial ask first.

For example I wasn’t aware of your opinions regarding our current leadership structure, I perhaps naively thought we were pretty good at self governing, but you make valid points that should go on the roadmap. If you frame the problem and provide a solution I’ll probably buy in, but as it stands there are resource-heavy solutions being lobbed around ahead of the key deliverable and I feel untethered in terms of: what is Set’s ask, what are the options, and what’s the community being asked to do?

I’d really still like for you to answer the questions I posed and provide the list of Set concerns (happy to discuss this as it seems to get dodged consistently). Otherwise it seems like you’re taking the position that your views conflict heavily enough with the community ask as to remove yourself from the process and I hope that’s not the case, as the community felt you should be at that table and so do I.

This may sound cheeky, but we sent y’all to do a thing; please do the thing - nothing more or less and if the scope is expanding let us know why and get buy-in or chuck it on the roadmap. That’s all.

And even though it went without saying, it should have been said: I personally think you’re the perfect person to be at that table, you’re thinking 10 steps ahead and I love it. I think any plan presented will be better if you’re involved in its creation. We put you in a tight spot, and you’re working through it like I’m sure we’ll all have to when we see it. We have strong leaders, just not centralized leaders, and you’re certainly one of them, so I hope you continue to help light the path here for us all.

Aside: I received what I can only construe as some sort of vague threat last night and I’ll be removing myself from the autonomy discussion entirely. I trust those elected to do what needs to be done from here out and apologize if my thoughts posted in this regard have harmed The Coop in any way or distracted from the issue. I was essentially asking the AG to stay in their lane, which maybe wasn’t my place to do, but I’ll stay in mine. Thanks for your hard work on this @Pepperoni_Joe, @Matthew_Graham, and @DarkForestCapital.

[Matthew_Graham]

Pretty compelling so far. To me a timeline for moving this forward should be included in the Autonomy Roadmap. Not a resolution, but how and when to move the topic forward.

[mel.eth]

Posting for visibility: SuperRare token, Samczsun saves the day and more - The Daily Gwei Refuel #189 - Ethereum Updates - YouTube

Summary by @sassal, along with a call to action for the unbiased third party position referenced here. Relevant section starts at about 7:30.

[0x_Dev]

Good thoughts from a number of folks. I really like your general thinking and questioning from first principles @mel.eth. Thanks for broaching the $INDEX subject @Matthew_Graham. I appreciate your general post @Metfanmike. And finally @Pepperoni_Joe you do incredible work, and I’ve complete respect and thanks for the work you do, so please do keep chipping away at it!

There’s a lot going on here and I’ll share some things that do seem clear to me and some others which are not clear to me - hopefully this is additive.

CLEAR:

• I’ve thought for some time that a 28% allocation to Set is not equitable and I’ve found the balance of incentives in this DAO to be an issue living with cost in peoples’ minds. If the Set team were full time, only focused on IC, 20-25% would be ok - maybe even 28%. There are other DeFi DAOs we know and love set up like this. But with them doing another business (DAO one day!?) I felt a reduction to 10-14%, depending on a range of things (current and near-term, forecastable future value added), would be fair - I’ve said this in private conversation to other owls for months
• That said Set added a lot of value at foundation, still add value today, and sometimes their value hasn’t been understood due to communication gaps
• I think we’d be best stopping the methodologist bounty as it exists today… NOW! Save the unused tokens and put them into a newly thought out scheme. It’s great to see new thought going into this incentive program.
• If there is to be a distribution to the community, I think a crude mechanic should be used to weight it per Owl: part of this including how early the contributor was here, reflecting more risk taken closer to genesis. Conflict of interest disclosure: I was here since Dec ‘20. The mechanic won’t be perfect but it will be more equitable than /60 - which I don’t think @Matthew_Graham intends as an actual implementation
• Such a token allocation to the community, in my mind it should have some forwards vesting but also instant vesting rewarding past work. Conflict of interest disclosure: same as above
• Creating new tokens and inflation is not palatable to me, for all the reasons cited above
• Such re-allocations are common and unremarkable, as @Metfanmike articulates well

UNCLEAR:

• Whether to include optimizing the DAO’s tokenomics as part of the AG!? I think I’m ok with it, but it wasn’t clearly defined ahead of the AG getting spun up and voted on. The DAO can decide
• Whether to address tokenomics now!? We have some community and forum leverage to address this now, but not as much engineering and infra control leverage. Certainly not token leverage at snapshots. Again, the DAO can decide
• If there is a token (re)distribution to the community, what % is it? What is equitable? We don’t want this to be seen in future as a hostile gauge prejudicing future joiners. This would require a lot of analysis and discussion to get mostly right and not be another quasi-constitutional issue to fix later

[Elmit]

The past few days I read only about this subject. Maybe I still get it wrong, but I try anyway:

I agree with most of the participants in this thread, that the optic of the situation is not good. However, I do not know how you can change it without harm. From my working life, I could not imagine altering an initial agreement, which puts someone in a different position. There must be a “candy” to agree. I don’t see that.

IC depends on the outstanding quality of SET. I am sure, they know that too. One comment even says, that SET did not bother to post anything in the past 4 months. That might be because they are busy, or just to underline their awareness of their unique position.

A possible solution would be not to put all eggs into one basket. E.g., if IC gets its own development team(s), working on a different product basket(s). Then the two groups of developers can be talked to and convinced to a change, but again, where is the candy? While additional developer team(s) do/does not change the position of SET as such but put them together as a “development” division, it certainly reduces the influence on IC.

[overanalyser]

I personally am against re-opening the genesis agreement. (Or, for the sake of clarity, FOR the round filing cabinet option i.e. bin).

I’m not familiar with other startups, so I can’t really comment on how 28% stacks up. I would agree that it sounds a lot.

However this was clearly stated at genesis, and everyone here has had the opportunity to consider it, and whether they decided to join the INDEXcoop community (vs the 100’s of other DAO’s being formed) on this basis.

---

When I consider the coop, I see an organisation that owes its genesis to Set. Our development into a large community is built upon the structures that Set created. Their employees are still helping the coop to develop and more importantly BUILD.

The coop has been successful in many aspects of growth, BD and community building. However, I would suggest that this has been built on two core pillars:

• Ownership of $DPI as our core product.
• Set’s continued support for our products - I struggle to believe that any coop contributor can read this post by @asoong and think that Set are failing to dedicate resources to the coop. (There may have been a failure to make this work visible, but it’s clear to me that Set are constantly working to move the needle for the coop. )

---

The genesis contract
Another way to look at the genesis is to consider 37.5% preallocated to Set / DeFi Pulse / methodologists (with 75% of this going to Set):

• Set
• DeFi Pulse + Coinshares + Synthetix + Bankless + LLama + Titans of DATA +…

I personally think that Set have, and will continue to deliver more than 3x more value to the coop than all the other partners combined.

Please note that in addition to INDEX token ownership, methodologists also capture streaming fees from our products before the community and Set.

---

With regard to autonomy
Could Set have delegated more to the community quicker? Almost certainly yes.

However, INDEXcoop is their baby, and releasing something you have created is hard as you need to readjust as they grow up and mature. Relationships are developing all the time, in addition, as the community grows, there is constant change and desire for more change. It’s hard to keep track of what’s going on.

With regard to the discord and forum, I don’t think Set can win:

• If they are active, then they are heavy-handed and over-controlling
• If they let the community grow and self manage, they are accused of being uninterested.

---

Set’s growth
I view Set Labs as a start-up that are (just like us) still learning. $INDEX and INDEXcoop represents a significant percentage of Set’s current value and growth prospects. In some ways, the coop is their exit to market. As such the coop and Set have a massive alignment in wanting the coop and $INDEX to be successful. By reducing the upside for Set, we are forcing their investors and owners (who I suspect include all current employees) to consider alternative ways to make Set successful.

I want Set to continue to focus a significant proposition of their energy on building for INDEXcoop. I do not think that reducing their upside from the coop does not do this.

---

Anyway, these are just my thoughts.

I happen to value builders above marketers, accountants and deal makers.

I realise that the market generally prices these skills in a different order.

Regards

OA

[0x_Dev]

Interesting to read this @overanalyser and thanks for sharing.

Do you see the community’s current ownership level as a problem? And, if so, how would you seek to remedy it?

[mel.eth]

@overanalyser,

I want to thank you for this thoughtful post. While I haven’t fully processed yet, I’m thinking about this in some different ways, and for that I’m grateful. I hope we can keep this conversation going.

[helmass]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts @overanalyser. Very refreshing to hear this perspective. I think this sums it up perfectly for me.

@overanalyser

However this was clearly stated at genesis, and everyone here has had the opportunity to consider it, and whether they decided to join the INDEXcoop community (vs the 100’s of other DAO’s being formed) on this basis.

At the end of the day Set protects/enhances my long term upside. I am also FOR the bin.

[mel.eth]

@overanalyser, I genuinely appreciate your comments here, and they’ve had an impact, so I’m sharing some upgraded thinking around this. Highlighting that Set was integral to genesis, provided the core product, and have been quietly supporting Index Coop more than what has likely been appreciated thus far are all great points and you illustrate them well.

I believe a lot of the frustration that contributors are feeling relates to expectation vs. reality. The expectation being that Set would be more involved and supportive, squared with the reality that communication has been lacking and engineering production has been a choke-point, at times for months. Set have in effect had the dual mandate of growing their own business and ensuring that IC is well-supported. While I can’t speak to the former, you have given me greater confidence in the latter. That said, the communication issues, now coming into sharper focus, will remain problematic if unaddressed - and I leave that to the autonomy group in terms of proposing a thoughtful solution.

Regarding your characterization of Set playing an unwinnable game in terms of communication, I disagree. There is a communication frequency and style that works, and we will find it. And to your point about Set being active or inactive - I believe contributors here were convinced that we were on a path to Set inactivity and have been building out those functions accordingly - the frustration in that regard is likely due to the ‘reactivation’ of our seemingly dormant partner (not from an engineering perspective, but from a leadership perspective).

I also believe that IC can be a better communicator as well. DAOs are at best confusing, and at worst intimidating, to traditional organizations. If we don’t make an effort to speak with a unified voice we’re just making noise. We need to not only communicate IC priorities to Set, but be understanding when those conversations about resource management etc. go to places we don’t expect, and be able to react appropriately. Relations between any two organizations essentially come down to regularly getting empowered people in a room together - so I believe we need to do that with some frequency.

I won’t speak to token allocation directly, but I will say that the tokenomics aren’t ideal. If you consider that you and I have to expend incremental energy (time+focus) to earn INDEX, and Set does not, where is their motivation to participate or accelerate? I would argue that IC autonomy is counterproductive in a game-theory sense, as the more autonomous we become, the more of a free-ride Set gets on their allocation . . . and maybe that’s OK, if the genesis allocation is viewed as a lump-sum for standing up a product, a DAO, token-based governance, and more support than we could have likely incentivized otherwise, through now. As you state however, IC represents a large portion of Set’s valuation, and so they do have some incentive to see us succeed, but how that squares with allowing us to be autonomous, we have yet to see (meaning they are not incentivized to be hands-off if we’re a significant portion of their holdings, other than maybe from a regulatory perspective). Maybe I don’t want to see the allocation adjusted as much as I’d like to see the remainder earned, but again, I’m not settled on this topic and appreciate your continued insight in this regard.

Lastly, I want to touch on this:

@overanalyser

I happen to value builders above marketers, accountants and deal makers.

I realise that the market generally prices these skills in a different order.

Firstly, me too. But secondly, this is very subjective. If you were to ask my father (who has worked in heavy-highway construction for 45 years), people that code are not builders . . . conversely, contributors to this DAO have built some amazing things.

Set and DeFi Pulse created Index Coop to solve a problem: Set had infrastructure, DeFi Pulse had a methodology, but they both needed a way to incentivize adoption, market their product(s), and allow for further growth. I don’t think anyone can argue that IC was very much the child of necessity, and that necessity wasn’t solidity devs. Set needed IC first, and IC have not dissapointed. So while I tend to agree that builders are valuable, we need every Owl, inclusive of marketers, accountants, and deal makers, focused on building out this DAO - and I’m sure you’ll agree we’re all doing a hell of a job.

You and a handful of Owls have done more to build this DAO than those of us that joined in '21 will ever truly comprehend; so thank you. I hope it’s safe to say we’re all builders in the sense you mean, or at least trying to, as @BigSky7 puts it, “take our little piece of the pie and make it as awesome as possible.”

Sorry to go deep on one phrase, I know that can be annoying, but I think it’s important to note that no party here is more valued than any other. And again, thank you, your post was easy to understand on a complex topic and I feel significantly more informed about the situation overall.