PNF shared the budget and asked for inputs from the community.
There will be difficult questions raised, sensible/nonsensical, there will be allegations made, many could be baseless, and more.
The community will not stick to the easy and the legit ones alone.
PNF/yourself will always be raised to higher standards being the DAO custodian (lack of a better term)
Fortunately or unfortunately, that’s how it will always work in our open system. You know this better than I do.
If I were you, I wouldn’t be assuming that those engaging here haven’t read PIP 26 and/or are somehow ignorant. I personally didn’t in the past (which I said openly) but now I do.
Treat my list above as a humble reminder, maybe there are screws to be tightened on a few as far as compliance goes. A rule book is just a rule book unless compliant. And there will always be some opportunity somewhere, and that’s fine.
I leave that to your capable hands to judge and act (if needed).
This is going to be my last post on this thread, and as usual I am not anywhere to witch hunt and/or conspire. I am just being Caesar.
Several people have reached out to me for my thoughts and overview on PNF + their budget, so i’ll try to add my thoughts, questions, criticisms and suggested paths forward:
Getting my personal stuff out the way first:
A few mentions that I should be part of PNF: I am very flattered that anyone would think that I should be apart of such an important organisation in our Ecosystem. I do have a full time job at poktpool where I am rather happy, but I wouldn’t be against some kind of minor part time role, for another discussion and I’m conscious of any potential Conflict of Interest between my job and any work for PNF.
looking at these salaries, Jeebus, I should have asked for more from the last year’s work for Pocket in PEP-51.
OK, getting into the actual meat of this:
Things I do not have concerns with:
Salaries + compensation seem to be about $135k - $180k or so for FT. Maybe a tad high given current market, but overall in the bounds of reason, and I would be the first to agree that Ming, Jack and B3N do great work. (I haven’t had the chance to interact with the others over the last year). I don’t have any issue here.
Paying pro-rata. If a reasonably accurate measuring of time can be transparently demonstrated. I’ll expand later on.
Having enough budget that community proposals do not have to wind through PEPs seems sensible.
“The new PNF team will not be evaluated based on 2022.” The new team should not be held to account for past mistakes. The old team should be.
‘Dermot + Nelson have a Conflict of Interest that as benefitting from their previous/current VC investment into PNI, they will want to route contracts from PNF to PNI and not be credibly neutral when we have GaaS.’ - this was a early concern of mine, but I now understand that Eden only own $POKT tokens, and no equity in PNI, and so there is no incentive for PNF members to route work to PNI over any other service. Please correct me If I am wrong, otherwise I hope this concern from the wider community is put to bed.
What I have varying degrees of concern with:
Procedural issue: reading the commentary tab, it suggests that Nelson is to work " up to 2 days a week" (line 19). However in the budget, it’s suggested that he is given a half salary, indicating 2.5 days per week. Can we get clarification on which this is to be? Or is he to get a premium?
I appreciate the argument that these are ‘top band figures’ but they tend to have a way of being cemented, so let’s get the docs right.
PNF document uses both $0.06 + $0.07 figures for POKT, it would be good to use a single figure.
How does PNF calculate hours? I believe there is some definition of this available, so please do correct me here. Jack and @Zataar have had some back and forth for how GRIP accounts for their hours, down to almost an individual hour level. I am certainly not arguing for each and every paperclip to be accounted for, but esp given we have an ex lawyer used to billing in 10min increments as a director, I’d like to better understand how hours will be accounted for, and think the system should be used universally across Pocket.
I am generally in favour of a relatively hands off overview of billable hours (‘just don’t take the piss’), but our policies should be universal and well documented (again, apologies to PNF if I have missed previous answers to this question).
What is a billable hour? While I have nothing but praise for those in the PNF I have interacted with, and don’t want to start with far flung ‘what-about-isms’ and mendacious attacks on personal character, I’d like to see focus on exchange integration, community building and any help to Demand.
I don’t think it is ‘unreasonable’ to voice concern that PNF has potential to be the modern day equivalent of DAO Bros sitting in winged-back red leather chairs smoking cigars, sipping aged whisky while charging the PNF/DAO (2024,) to pontificate on the nature of 'The DAO. ’
There seemed to be no oversight of 2022, and while the 2023 team is clearly very cognizant of that and I don’t believe mistakes will be remade, credible oversight is important. I further appreciate that until the first review at end of q1 or so, PNF can’t defend against things that haven’t been done yet, and so this point is a ‘suggestion on focus’ and not an attack of questioning of the team.
Leading on from 8, I too am uneasy that 2/3 directors are old friends, colleagues in two different companies and seem to have hired each other to the stage. Of only 5 employees and 3 directors, this does seem rather ‘cozy’.
Further leading on from 8- It feels with the Pocket DNA project that we are in a case of ‘fund us first, then we’ll work out what we are going to do’. I appreciate that there are some guidelines, and i’m somewhat exaggerating the point, but this seems a little ephemeral and I generally agree with Zataar’s point made in other posts that i’d like to see more structure first before funds are offered.
Who the heck was/is Stephane? I’ve been in this community for over a year and never even heard that name before - and looking @ethen 's screenshots of time committed, their laconic approach to Pocket is yet another addition to the worryingly long list of poor hires with no accountability. I don’t want to go off topic and Jinx is correct that we shouldn’t use proposals (although this is technically an update?) to push old grievances, attack the team for passed mistakes or use 20/20 hindsight to demonish the team while attempting to look as perspicacious as possible.
I make point 12 because it adds gravitas to the question of what responsibility do those in charge in 2022 hold? I am against a witch hunt and trying to find people to blame for the sake of it (see my vocal support of PEP-49), but I’m not sure the pendulum should swing too far the other to completely zero responsibility. Respectfully as possible: If Nelson was working at the PNF (and is claiming a 5 figure salary for doing so during that time), at what point did he realise that Stephane was unfit to be a director? Why was this issue not acted on? With a salary comes a responsibility.
I see that at least Dermot is a DAO voter if not others PNF members (Ming also). Can we have (debate if needed, but hopefully just confirmation) that PNF Directors and salaried staff on the books will recuse themselves from any vote around PNF funding from the DAO?
PNF does important work for our community and I support them being adequately funded and staffed. I meant no ad hominem attacks against any members, and apologise in advance if any questions or criticisms came across as aggressive or attacking - the PNF members i’ve worked with in the past are the apotheosis of our community.
Haven’t had time to dig into this Budget and Accounts thread yet but did want to answer @shane 's question. @Cryptocorn has a modest funding request he recently posted (PEP-51) and I will likely follow suite sometime next month once the dust settles on SER. I have no insight re the other teams you call out but certain hope they will post PEPs as well. I agree with your overall point that arguments along the lines of “X not getting paid” don’t help move the dialogue forward in a meaningful manner.
So, for me… this proposal comes down to the facts I know to be true.
For me, Nelson and Dermot are the real deal. For me, this is a fact because I have seen them, all over the world, shilling POKT. I’ve only known them while inside of POKT, and I’ve only know them to be all about POKT. I went to a number of crypto events, around the world, as a Biz Dev rep for PNI, and everywhere I went, they were there, repping POKT. They have traveled the world, on their own, without any forced obligation to rep POKT because that’s what they were about. Even though PNF was structured as a mere tool to do the legal wishes of the DAO (like rep POKT for exchanges, which was voted on by the DAO), Nelson and Dermot were POKT heads on their own time and dime, which I’m ok with them getting reimbursed for. Many of you may not have met them in person before, but I can’t un-see their POKT passion and good looks.
While I do understand that on paper someone can imagine a nefarious scenario, to me that is not the case. Having two directors with different professional backgrounds that have a history of working together and shilling POKT together isn’t a weakness. I’ve been in convos in person regarding topics like the DAO and they each had their own individual thoughts. We want PNF directors that have their thoughts, but are able to work together, so I don’t see this as a weakness. Again, this is just what I’ve personally experienced. I hold what I’ve witnessed in person to a very high regard, and you all should too
I’ve been with POKT since 2018 and have seen it try something, fail, and pivot to find it’s footing. Did most of you know that POKT has had multiple white papers? The team first tried to make POKT as a smart-contract, when they realize that the smart contract would be too large and require too much computation fees to handle millions and billions of relays, they switched to their own chain. They created their first white-paper, which is what I read first before joining their Slack (Yes, POKT was first born on Slack). Well, by the time the MVP rolled out in mid 2019 (any Monster Chase fans still out there) they realized their white-paper wasn’t going to cut it, so they wrote a whole new white paper. This time it was way better… mainly because they included my client-side verification suggestion
Should we have fired the team, and replaced leadership when they realized their smart-contract efforts were in vain? Or after they spent all this time on the first white-paper that created an unusable MVP? Or when we realized v0 won’t do everything POKT has grown to need, so they stared on a v1? Or how about now with realizing they grew too fast and needed to downsize and reorganize PNF in a transparent manner?
For most POKT contributors that have been around, there is a past that folks can point to where there had to be pivots because of mistakes, a lack of knowledge, or sometime just bad luck. I personally have seen the humility, honesty, integrity, and now… very open transparency, which is why I’m for the PNI pivot and the PNF pivot, without casting stones. The DAO should expect accountability in this new chapter and it would be prudent for the DAO to stay vigilant, which these conversations have shown, but I would rather work with folks who have wrestled with challenges and learned from their past, than someone with a blank slate.
TLDR: Nelson and Dermot are the real deal from what I’ve seen. Call me bias because I experienced them in the crypto wild… but I want to give them a chance with an org that now has teeth because from what I’ve seen, they are all in, and have a savvy professional record. I don’t however want folks to paint contributor’s character with heavy handed speculation. If folks where heavy handed on my character based on high levels of conjecture, I hope those I’ve worked with would speak up.
P.S. Michael is the real deal as well. I can’t un-see what I’ve experienced with him as well. You don’t see orgs publicly pivot with the kind of humility everyday. That is a characteristic we do not want POKT to lose.
Just a thought around directors compensation. Maybe we should look at doing a one year contract with a 90 trial period with a vote on continuing the one year contract after the 90 day period. This would allow the directors to prove their worth and allow the community to asses that appropriately.
Picking up on some direct points so that I can clarify any confusion:
Eden Block only ever invested in POKT and owns no equity. Furthermore, I last worked at Eden Block in early June last year, and I have had zero active involvement with Eden Block since. My remaining ties are a passive LP interest and a share in the carry.
I’ve been involved as a contributor in the Pocket community since before network genesis, and anyone who knows me will know me for being one of the fiercest advocates for upholding Pocket’s values and staying true to the mission.
The directors believe this is reasonable based on the value we see Nelson adding. Nelson is more than a stereotypical passive NED who just rocks up to a board meeting once a month and adds no value. He worked for free for the foundation for the last two years as he cares deeply about Pocket’s mission.
We will share more detail on the individual and shared roles and responsibilities at PNF very soon.
You’ll see that only $0.07 was used in the budget tab, as that was the price when the budget was published. However, this point is subject to the point in the commentary, which states:
We have agreed that the minimum price to be used for any grant will be $0.06. It will be more if the market price at the time is greater than $0.06 per POKT, which will result in less POKT granted.
Even if the price drops below $0.06, $0.06 would be the minimum price used for this calculation. If it goes up, so will the base price.
There are a couple of things to unpack here. Firstly, as Jack kindly mentioned above:
It would have been cleaner for me to say that I’m full-time, which I am (as the rest of the PNF team will gladly attest), but I also am an angel investor and contribute to some other DAOs in my spare time. So even though in a typical job, outside interests are completely normal - and generally seen as beneficial - I said 80% to make it clear to the community that I would only be paid for my direct Pocket contributions, even if my working time is skewed 95% towards PNF v 5% to other interests. In hindsight, saying 80% was confusing. I hope the situation is clearer now.
Secondly, while I worked as a corporate (VC and PE) lawyer at two global law firms for five years, I last worked as a lawyer over 4.5 years ago. And all of my time since has been in tech and web3 as an operator, board member (of the ICE List, one of Europe’s most important founder communities) and investor. So, believe me; I don’t bill my hours in 6-minute segments any more! Thank fuck. And none of us on the foundation will be billing anyone overzealously like that, either. All directors and full-time staff have a fixed rate, as set out in the budget. Additionally, there are no additional benefits for healthcare, pension or otherwise. And we will each be held accountable for our output. If someone isn’t performing, I guarantee we will move quicker than the DAO to move them on.
Nelson and I had very different roles at Eden Block- with me leading on investments and portfolio support and Nelson leading on research - in a team of 8 people. Nelson and I also have different viewpoints and professional backgrounds and live in very different parts of the world (London and Australia), which adds to our global perspective. The idea that we are old-school friends or neighbours is very far from the mark.
Two things here:
Just to be really clear, and apologies for stating what you understand already, but I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere before, so I’ll mention it again; the PNF budget has no relationship to the DAO’s treasury. PNF has its own independent treasury. This is not a request for funding from the DAO. Any request to receive any of the DAO’s funds will require a standalone new PEP.
Jack and Nelson do not have DAO votes yet. However, every DAO voter represents themselves and not any other institution. Still, as you will see from the following comment in the PIP-26 debates, we are aligned in terms of wanting to avoid any conflicts:
We will share more detail on our approach to transparency and conflicts of interest soon to clear up any potential ambiguity.
Lastly, let’s keep talking about any other points or concerns you may have. I believe it’s constructive to be collaborative and open about this kind of stuff and work together to get to an outcome we all agree is based on sound principles. However, I would recommend moving all non-budget-related discussions to a separate forum post or another venue on discord or telegram so we can keep the budget discussion on track.
The DAO has the right to propose the removal of any director at any time, so there is no need to include an additional provision anywhere. If you’re unhappy with our performance, please feel free to propose our removal.
The DAO voted us in less than 3 weeks ago on the 11th of Jan, but none of us expects to be kept on if we aren’t delivering. Live by the sword, die by the sword and all that.
One last thing on your post (feel free to post publicly or DM if I missed anything else you wanted me to answer directly on):
I appreciate you pointing these things out. We are firmly aware of the need to prove ourselves.
Given your interest in PNF’s focus, please complete the survey (Pocket Network Community Survey: Mission, Values and Priorities) if you haven’t already, and put your hand up to be more closely involved in shaping the outcome of this workstream if interested. The objective of Project DNA is to “Align the community behind a mission that resonates and a set of priorities they want to support.” Which seems right up your alley.
I think having discussions on how directors will be compensated would be helpful to this process. Not sure if it should be a separate discussion but it does seem like it would make sense to hammer that out first before moving forward. Otherwise we will be doing this every time new directors are onboarded. Maybe the budget proposal was the cart before the horse. But if we have an expectation for director comp then the process of getting that passed and then onboarded would be easier
We are writing a proposal for funding our GeoMesh dev costs in the near future. Probably it will be posted next month.
We will also post some other requests for founding of new proposals that are currently being developed and services that we provide to the community (both technical advising and portal hosting).
This is a chunky contract, indeed. While this contract predates me joining PNF, I have reviewed it and the relationship with Copper since joining PNF. I can confirm that it was entered into on the 3rd of October last year on behalf of the ecosystem. The monthly fees of $36k are due to start this month and run for the whole calendar year. I understand these fees align with what other non-EVM blockchains pay for custodial support from platforms like Copper.
An institutional custodian is mandatory for almost all regulated investors, which is an important stepping stone for POKT’s legitimacy and long-term sustainability. Institutional investors can now buy and hold POKT directly via the Copper platform. Having Copper onboard also enables some larger staking providers, such as Figment, to join the ecosystem, enabling white-label staking programs via multi-blockchain wallets and exchanges in due course.
In terms of exactly what we are getting for our money, these fees were a prerequisite for Copper to complete a custom integration to support Pocket.
This was arguably the biggest ask from many of the biggest holders of POKT over the last couple of years.
Speaking directly from PNF’s perspective, we will use Copper to add an extra layer of safety and security for custodying all of PNF’s EVM assets - instead of Gnosis safe - and create a multi-sig over all of PNF’s POKT wallets, something which isn’t possible at the moment (as too many of you already know with respect to your own custody setups).
Regarding the DAO, we can use Copper to custody any assets that PNF is currently custodying on behalf of the DAO, such as tokens from token swaps, and to add a multi-sig to control DAO governance transactions too. @JackALaing can provide more detail on this last point, though, as he has thought about this more than anyone else in the ecosystem.
I’m finding this thread hard to follow already… a friendly reminder that this thread is about the P&L of last year accounting and this year’s budget. I think it’s perfectly fine to ask questions about the last year’s directors’ spending (and subsequently Nelson’s responsibility for example). However, it is not supposed to be a thread about geo mesh reimbursements, leanpokt reimbursements, inflation distribution reimbursements, the newly elected members of PNF, etc. If we need to have that conversation, let’s do that in a follow-up to PIP-26 and keep focused on PNF’s last year’s spending and upcoming spending for 2023.
If you want to vote to remove a director - let’s follow up on that in another thread. If you want reimbursement, follow up in another thread. This thread is about 2023 budget and 2022 accounting and of course accountability.
The Copper agreement was entered into before PIP-26 was passed. PIP-26 introduced the controls that empowers the DAO to veto PNF budgets or special transactions.
The reason it is listed in the non-recurring expenses section is that the bulk of the amount is a one-time integration fee spread out over 12 months. Any fees in 2024 would only be the standard custody fees, since the integration will have already been paid for in 2023.
The contract is with PNF.
As Dermot detailed above, this is not about Foundation OpSec, the Foundation using Copper as a custodian is just a bonus.
The Foundation has paid for the Copper integration so that the whole ecosystem now benefits from access to an institutional-grade custodian. This unlocks adoption by larger institutions and staking providers like Figment, who power white-label staking programs seen in wallets and exchanges.
The Foundation may continue to pay Copper custody fees in future years, but these will be much smaller amounts in comparison to the custom integration fee we’re paying this year.
If I recall correctly, there was some coin swaps we did earlier on the year. Does PNF or the DAO own those?
As well, at one point, PNF staked pokt onto the PNI portal didn’t they? Was those funds after returned post gigastakes / are they accounted for in this breakdown
Yes, the DAO did a number of token swaps in the last 12 months or so, which PNF custodies on the DAO’s behalf as the DAO can’t do so itself. Yet at least. @JackALaing has been doing some good work to reconcile all of this and put it into an easily accessible resource for the community. While I don’t want to give you a specific date for this, we are keenly aware of it and will be done relatively soon!
Yes, that’s correct; PNF lent a large portion of its POKT treasury to stake on apps’ behalf in the portal. All of this has been returned since and is accounted for in the POKT balance stated in the accounts.
As a reminder to everyone on the budget approval process stated in the newly adopted articles, and as set out in PIP-26:
Consequently, all the line items in the budget will pass next Friday unless there is a challenge - that there is sufficient consensus around to push to a vote - before then. The validity of any line item in the budget that isn’t challenged will not be affected or delayed by any challenge to any other item in the budget.
