I do not desire to be unfair, so my apologies. I would ask you look at how those on the outside see this kind of decision making.
It was mentioned shortly after ETHDenver that plans to open v0 gateways were underway. From what was communicated, PNF members met with @poktblade in-person (not sure if others were there) about v0 gateways, which launched the idea. It excited everyone that v0 gateways would be possible.
Since then, there has been a number of community calls where both PNI and PNF members were asked for updates regarding v0 gateway plans, and it was repeatedly told that there isn’t anything to report as PNF is still trying to figure out how to share appstakes. It was always mentioned that once there has been progress it would be shared.
What was not expected, is that the update of progress would also include nearly a quarter of the Era Budget would be going to a company where a POP was not used. Some POPs are to follow… but not for this.
The ERA Budget said the support would be “regarding legal, docs, and any other small support needs they may have to go live”. It was not mentioned that this was to pay for the development of their gateway itself with 90% of the budget. From my side, I assumed anything funds for development would be focused on PNF tooling to share appstakes and ensure gateways are not gaming the system (which they easily can do unless PNF has robust monitoring).
Providing a single entity with nearly a quarter of the DAO Era Treasury, without a POP, was never communicated, hence why I ask you see things from the outsiders perspective. The POP usage for ALLOCATED PRIORITY: Mainnet Snapshots saw a lot of unique applicants with innovative value propositions. It was clear that the POP was for development, and I’m confused why a POP couldn’t have been used here, when a substantial amount of the DAO treasury is at stake.
Double funding?
I’m also struggling with seeing how this is not double funding. @BaaSPoolLLC said in their per-proposal for Leanpokt that they already have this exact team, which you are now saying PNF will fund again with more DAO treasury?
They said they will “becomes more sustainable and lucrative if we are able to get our reimbursement.”, which the DAO gave them, and now they need another $300k from the DAO for the same team? How many times is the DAO supposed to support the same team for the same roadmap? On-top of them already having one of the most lucrative node running businesses this year?
Also in their Community Call they stated they are building multiple ways to monetize with websockets and specialty APIs that do not use the POKT Protocol at all. The specially said:
There are like some creative ways where we could start taking in traffic ourselves and then create a plan to pipe that over to pocket network, but yes one of our goals is make sure that Pocket Network receives some of this traffic on top of that we want to provide sustainable support for the app users.
Yes, Pocket Network will get some of their traffic… but they propose that their main value prop is what is NOT related to the protocol itself, but related to their own centralized features. They are welcome to build whatever feature they like, but I don’t see how a gateway focused on non-protocol features should be subsidized by the DAO.
I truly have no idea how to understand what funding proposal is funding what at this point.
I also thought I had a good understanding of the Era Budget works, but now I super confused because this is not at all what was presented.
Not trying to mischaracterize anything, so please correct me where I am wrong. I’m just being factual with my understand of the information that has been given to us to date.