The purpose of this thread is to discuss extending the runway of the HydraDX Protocol:
Put aside 5M DAI of the LBP funds, to be used for extending the runway of the HydraDX Protocol during the upcoming 2 years. The funds will be distributed by the HydraDX Council in installments equivalent to no more than a 6 months' runway.
Please read the background information: https://hydradx.substack.com/p/the-future-is-hydrated
We strongly support this proposal for the following reasons :
Requesting 22% of 22M DAI on the 22nd day of the 2nd month? I don't know how much more you could ask for, it's clearly meant to happen.
My questions.....have you kept track of your expenses over the years? To show how 6 million was used. What is the calculation of the figure of 5 million? Why do you want to get everything in 6 months, and not break it down quarterly? And for the community to draw conclusions based on what they see as a result of the quarter. Do you want 5 million for 2 years, but receive all the funds in 6 months? I don't see the logic. I would also like to see activity from funds on the project, unfortunately I haven't seen a single tweet. We also really need marketing, judging by the number of active wallets, few people know and use the protocol.
@ValorHDX The 5M would be the total amount authorised through governance to be allocated for funding development. The HydraDX Council would then distribute these funds in batches of no more than ~6 months worth of runway in order to provide some assurance for community that funds would be going towards constant delivery. We considered alternative sized batches (i.e. full 2 years, every 3 months, etc) but settled on 6 months as long enough to provide space to operate but regular enough to ensure regular delivery.
I will note here that 5M requested is somewhat of a "survival" budget - it is by no means lucrative, especially if you compare to much larger raises in other projects delivering far less. We have recently significantly reduced burn rate to allow for ~ 2 years' funding for $5mm.
I'm not sure what you mean re: tweet - this post has been tweeted by the official account here.
@7KTh...83UE It's worth mentioning that outside funding would come at a discount to current market prices - it would also be a "down round" which I don't believe is seen in the best light.
Unfortunately even though I was an early believer and investor in this project the scope of this discussion is a little beyond my tech understanding I will support the majority in their decision with the hopeful confidence that this community has the longterm project success in mind and not short term profits or savings.
That said wondering if one of you more astute members might guide me off discussion regarding my actual hydra tokens. I currently see 50,000 xHDX still sitting in my metamask account even though i have a claiming account and a hydra snakenet account neither of which am i able to access other than seeing the address for both Obviously missing some steps to both claim my hydra and make them useful with the coming staking and voting measures If someone could kindly guide me as to what steps i need to follow to ensure my hydra is in the right account and i am benefitting from all the activity to come
thanks much
mjg
Hey sir, please feel free to join to us in Discord or Telegram so we can guide you in a better way
If the price of HDX is ten or 100 times the final price of LBP, then the development of funds is obviously not worth mentioning. The key is the current situation. It seems that the 5 million of the funds raised by LBP are the only options for optional. Even if you look for institutions financing, this will further reduce the cost of the institution, the premise is that some institutions are willing to invest further (I don't know if DFG has plans).
If there are no other choices, use it.
I recommend that we have a marketing plan and hope to see more CEX list HDX.
I feel the team has done an amazing job with this project and I want to see it continue and flourish. It makes sense to me using LBP funds is the best way to go.
While the amount of funds spent on this project, and the requested 5 million, are low for a project of this scope, like
@ValorHDX
I would like to see accounting of how funds have been spent so far. Nothing personal, this is business.
I will be supporting this proposal with an aye, looking at where the team has come from and what they have delivered on two (BSX & HDX) networks. Furthermore a strong community, great products, great UX and good vibes.
What I would like see in proposal when this discussion forms a referendum, a simplistic roadmap how the roll-out of features will take place. The article doesn't mention feature/timeline. This is most likely not what the team wants to do, but in the public eye it will be appreciated and what is logical development flow of these features.
The article has mentioned 8 main new features and in two years things do change. Such as new products/innovations, new narratives, new hypes. How will the team deal with these? Is there room for further experimenting on these or more budgeting will be needed?
@Polkatheta
Yes you will see the marketing strategy coming into full effect in the coming weeks/ months as more project integrations and token additions to the Omnipool are announced - bringing swathes of new Hydraheads (or Hydratooooors) to the Omnipool. Establishing HydraDX Omnipool as the go-to DEX for swaps in the ecosystem requires us to have deeper liquidity (leading to lower slippage on trades) than competitors, more assets for users to swap, and better UX than others. We are almost there on the deeper liquidity for some assets - with execution of the Q1 POL diversification strategy going swimmingly, we expect to see multiple new assets in the coming weeks, and personally I believe (also based on feedback) that our UX is by far the best in this ecosystem.
Expect new forms of content and regular updates to help build on this base :)
@Staker Space Thank you for the kind words!
Re: timeline - yes, it is hard to put dates on things... but what we can do is give an indication of prioritisation of the features, as well as what "stage" of development they're in. Starting with February, we will be providing monthly updates on progress on all fronts (development, partnerships, events, misc, etc) where we will highlight as an example:
I think that this will play into your final question also - if new narratives/ focuses crop up we should regularly review these priorities (and agree them with community) so that we are all in agreement on how the protocol evolves.
@lolmcshizz What about 'unvested' allocations/grants to the team members that were let go? Generally any unvested stock or options are forfeit when employees are fired/laid off/ downsized. If those are forfeit what happens to them - back to the general treasury for use to future hires? Or maybe nothing vests but is just granted on an ongoing basis while employed which then implies a larger allocation for anyone still working on the team?
I'm not against the proposal but I do think you are seeing people starting to ask questions about a better view as to how funds have been / will be spent. Of all the projects I have followed the past few years this one has probably an order of magnitude **LESS **communication from the team than any other project. I also know you guys don't feel that way but many others disagree. And now you are asking for $5M of the protocol's funds while everyone else sits here in the red. We just want to see more details on the ask.
So all of this said... it makes a lot of sense to me to provide a known and stable runway of available funds so the team can focus on developing the protocol. And the LBP funds are likely the cheapest source of capital at this point.
I would likely be voting "yes".
But I would also like to see some of that $5M put into better communication going forward. More detailed and more frequent updates of what $200k/mo is being used for. And as you hint at (but not a lot of detail) what the plan is going forward to build awareness of the project and grow its user base.
Edited
The team's ultimate pursuit of function and safety is impressive! Of course, product is the foundation and should be encouraged! However, the team's laziness in marketing is baffling. Maybe you did a lot of work, like organizing a few ground meetings, but I don't think it was enough. The reality is that after HDX went live, very few new investors entered. I may agree to set aside 5m dollor funds for operating expenses in the next two years, but I would like to see the marketing plan and the allocation of marketing expenses: staffing, expense use plan, marketing methods, etc. Behind closed doors, the result is definitely not good. I hope the team will strengthen marketing and not always feel good about themselves.
Edited
@7KNt...gRJd Thanks for your feedback. Re: unallocated team tokens due to leavers, there aren't a large amount of those, but any remaining unallocated team tokens will be reserved for future hires.
Message received on greater communication - I can agree that we've not always been the best at communicating, but as I alluded to above we will be starting monthly updates that will give everyone a better understanding of progress of development. We will also be doing regular AMAs/ office hours/ maybe some text-based AMAs - whatever format is most useful for our community.
You can expect to see some new forms of content coming up too - e.g. how-to guides and explainer videos, as these forms have been neglected in the past (despite this being a favoured medium by many over long-form written).
Outside of this, as partnerships with other projects come to fruition there will be coordinated marketing efforts around these and engagement with their respective communities - we are also working with other ecosystem projects on a huge campaign that we think will bring a lot of energy.
I will finish with a rebuttal of the response after yours from 7Jqf...HRbt - the marketing isn't "lazy" as you put it, it's about matching the relevant stage of the project. You generally only get one opportunity in this space to "shoot your shot" - it was important to launch the Omnipool, and begin to follow the diversification strategy approved by HDX holders. It is critical that the foundations are laid and we have something to "shout about" before we really crank things up.
Put it this way, if we'd have done some huge push in recent weeks - visitors would be met with relatively shallow pools and a generally poor bridging experience from Ethereum <> Acala <> HydraDX. If they left disappointed it would be extremely difficult to win them over. Step by step, piece by piece, the vision is coming together.
@7KNt...gRJd @lolm...hizz addressed very nicely most of your points but also I have to stand behind team wrt ideas about slashing part of team allocation which is on low end of crypto projects spectrum.
Please understand that:
Jakub, co-founder of HydraDX, CEO of Intergalactic
Edited
@lolmcshizz What I mean is that HDX cannot be excluded from the CEX list. We need to obtain exposure from CEX. Logging in more CEX is also necessary for the HDX ecology. Our Chinese community agrees that we need to list more CEXs.
I will support this conditionally.
I do not want approval to lock us into specific features mentioned. Maybe a really cool idea comes to us later or maybe after R&D, it appears some named feature would not be ideal or cost effective.
I want the team to maintain freedom to push the envelope and explore ideas that may or may not pan out.
I considered a big analysis write-up with market average developer salary data, headcounts, github commit information, treasury payouts, annualized discounted HDX rewards, and other tedious ‘due-diligence’ questions and topics – but at the end of the day, it is always going to come down to whether I trust the team has good intentions – and I do.
Based on what I have seen thus far, if the team says they think it is a good idea to reappropriate funds, it probably is.
I just want to see this treated as a living roadmap rather than some immutable contract.
Personally I support this initiative – in my mind it's best to look at HydraDX as one big DAO (particularly because the protocol is actually decentralized and has open governance). I'll go over the basic structure of the HydraDX DAO (as it stands right now) so that everyone is on a similar page for this discussion and doesn't get different groups of people (and their tokens) mixed up.
The 22m DAI is controlled by the HydraDX DAO and is designated as Protocol Owned Liquidity (POL), it is to be used for the further development (in terms of technology development, growth development, etc) of the HydraDX protocol. The HydraDX DAO members (token holders) elect the HydraDX Council. It is the responsibility of the HydraDX Council to; control the POL (which is held under a Gnosis Safe multisig on Ethereum); to gather feedback from the DAO members; and to ultimately execute expenditure of the POL as per the will of the HydraDX DAO. This process of proposing expenditure and gathering feedback from the HydraDX DAO can be seen under Referendum #18. It should be worth noting that the HydraDX Council is a decentralized group of people, and some of the current constituent members, such as myself, have no affiliation with the Intergalatic Council company (more on them later).
Again, the POL does not have to necessarily be added as liquidity into the Omnipool, and can instead be used to develop the HydraDX Protocol in other ways (such as paying developers).
Anyone (I mean that in the literal sense) can raise a proposal to the HydraDX DAO to develop the protocol, this can be in terms of actual software development (such as runtime upgrades), marketing, community management, or any other "development". It is ultimately up to the HydraDX DAO to review each proposal, vote on it when it is nudged to a referendum, and then it is the responsibility of the HydraDX Council to utilize the POL as per the will of the HydraDX DAO, and not to add any personal bias (i.e. no Vetoing of referendum which have passed through the DAO vote). In some cases such as tips, the Council can payout funds in HDX to reward development work, this type of payout can typically be seen under tip proposals by community managers, or translators.
The "Intergalactic Council" (hereinafter IGC) legal entity have been actively developing the HydraDX protocol for many years now. You should think of this discussion topic as that legal entity engaging with the HydraDX DAO to continue actively developing the HydraDX protocol on behalf of the HydraDX DAO (again, developing can mean actual software development, marketing, etc.). Ultimately, it is in the best interests of IGC to actively develop features that further grow the HydraDX protocol, as if they do a good job, then the HydraDX DAO is more likely to continue to pay them for their efforts. (Note: there may have been a time in the past where IGC and "the HydraDX team" were somewhat interchangeable, however that is no longer the case as the HydraDX protocol is now sufficiently decentralized that it cannot be controlled solely by IGC).
The proposal to pay IGC in 6 monthly installments is a great idea. For example, currently IGC has proposed to add quite a lot of new features to the HydraDX protocol, including:
However, this does not mean that these are the only things that they will / should develop on behalf of the HydraDX Protocol – in fact, at the start of each 6 month period, the HydraDX DAO can engage with IGC to propose the feature set which they will actively develop over the next 6 month period, and the DAO could actually change the priorities of IGC development if the DAO decided there's a better path.
At the end of the day, IGC has to pay people's salaries, and they have historically done a stellar job of developing the HydraDX protocol on behalf of the DAO, and likely will continue to do so. IMO it would be a great shame / miscalculation to decide to not allocate a portion of the POL towards the further development of the protocol.
Additionally, I believe we should avoid discussions WRT what IGC decides to do with their HDX tokens. Those tokens belong to IGC, and it's not really correct for the DAO to dictate what any individual / company does with their HDX tokens. Those tokens are not owned by the DAO, they are owned by a private company.
I like the way Leemo sees it. The protocol cannot be built itself, and at the moment no more people have appeared willing to help build it (it does not mean that there won't be one later on) so that in terms of decentralization, it won't be only one core team who helps in the development of the protocol ( in the future)
I personally feel that the Intergalactic team is thinking the best for the protocol, as has been seen with several previous decisions, therefore I am in favor of providing funds for the development of the project
HDX staking is something that doesn't excite me very much, since for now I don't see how to make it feasible without inflation, would it be more a way to find the distribution of tokens in exchange for a service?
As for the rest, it will be possible to see what is necessary and what is no longer, as the whole market evolves.
The Liquidation Mechanism is something that I am interested in seeing in action, since it gives a very important use to the Liquidity that we are concentrating in the Omnipool and which benefits the entire ecosystem, for its safety and health
Edited
I will be using my voting power to support this proposal.
I can understand the community members here calling for marketing and transparency. But take a second and consider.
I think the team have delivered the best kind of marketing and transparency:
Consistency,
Results,
Putting the Community first with REAL ASSETS and initiatives
The Galactic team, from the very beginning, really only promised two things:
-> A financial instrument that solves real, unsolved problems ( liquidity, blah blah blah :) )
-> A tribe <- go read that again and think about it
To me, it's frankly beautiful. I hope the Galactic team still believes in the founding ethos+logos behind this project. We don't talk about it much anymore because we're in the middle of bringing number 1 to life and that's ok.
The best marketing and transparency is grassroots; word of mouth; what every individual contributes to the community. Let's all think what we can do towards that and then do it.
Edited
With regard to the marketing discussion. In my view, the majority of marketing should happen organically.
If HydraDX solves a real problem and can demonstrate efficiency compared to competitors, it will sell itself through word of mouth.
Some marketing might be reasonable, but I do not want to see HydraDX engaged in any of the classic crypto marketing shenanigans. Not implying anyone was suggesting that.
Edited
If you want to raise 22% of the funds raised on LBP, then in exchange you need to provide something more specific than promises. How about exchanging this amount for HDX tokens? Funds do not give funds against promises. I think it would be wise to exchange HDX for funding for LBP participants with a 2 year lock. In this case, both parties to the transaction are sufficiently protected.
@7Kjq...4PBz I think it's important to understand that for HydraDX protocol to thrive, it requires additional features vs what has been delivered to date - specifically, those outlined in the recent blog would allow HydraDX Omnipool to seriously compete not only against other DEXes, but also CEXes. The "something" that is being provided in exchange for the funding is the development of these features - without the funding, we don't get to see these fantastic additions to HydraDX. The HydraDX Council will not distribute these funds in greater sums than ~6 months' worth of development for any team, which provides some level of protection for HDX holders that development will continue.
I'm also not sure what HDX you would like to be exchanged - again, this is not specifically the "team" that are requesting these funds - it is funding for all potential builders of the protocol. So the HydraDX treasury exchanging HDX with itself doesn't make a lot of sense here. If you're referring to the "team" token allocation - these are currently locked in cliff/ vesting for the best part of 3 years, so are not liquid and the team should not be funding the development themselves from their earned tokens, even if they were liquid.
You should check out the recording of yesterday's AMA (warning, it's a long one) for more context around these matters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdAxv7zkPkA
@7Kjq...4PBz The way I am thinking about this, as a simple HDX holder like yourself, is that we (HDX holders) are hiring a company, Galactic Council, to continue building out feature-sets we want for HydraDX. It’s more complicated than that obviously, because these funds are being set aside for more than just funding Galactic Council – but I think it’s the correct mindset to think about it in those terms.
The first thing I want to point out is we have the freedom to vote and change this proposal or even stop funding Galactic council if we feel that they are not completing what we want them to be completing.
The next thing I want to point out is developers need to buy food, pay rent, and utility bills like the rest of us. Paying them in locked HDX is basically not paying them. Devs would not be able to support themselves and would either quit, or improving HDX would become secondary to some other full-time gainful employment that pays their bills. This would delay development, increase bugs, and potentially kill HydraDX’s future.
I just voted AYE and fully support the funding proposal. I have been following the HydraDX project and the team since the beginning, and I can say that they have delivered on all their promises. Furthermore, Jakub always explains the team's actions and decisions, so I have a lot of trust in them.
Considering that such a complex and cutting-edge technology as HydraDX has been developed for only $6M in the last two years, it's a no-brainer for me to support the team with POL funds and stay away from the VC jackals.
Keep grinding and stay hydrated!
Referedum #35 is now live for your votes!
This is the referedum about the current discussion
https://hydradx.subsquare.io/democracy/referendum/35
I’m interested to hear pros/cons of repurposing LBP POL vs outside funding. My thoughts: