[PROPOSAL][DRAFT] Acquisition of Stargaze
NOTE: Thank you to everyone that provided feedback on this proposal. At present, Stargaze is exploring a deployment on the Hub while retaining the STARS token. Our goal is a partnership that benefits the Cosmos Hub while preserving the autonomy and culture of Stargaze. More details soon. Executive Summary Stargaze proposes a strategic acquisition by Cosmos Hub, migrating its core apps, NFTs, and users to the Hub. The acquisition entails three key components: a STARS-to-ATOM token migration, operational funding for the Stargaze frontend, and team funding to ensure seamless integration and continued growth. What Cosmos Hub gets : the #1 NFT marketplace in Cosmos— $50M+ lifetime volume, 20k+ monthly active traders, protocols generating ~$50k/month in revenue, and ~3,000 ATOM in monthly gas fees—plus a shipping-fast team and blue-chip collections such as Bad Kids and Celestine Sloths, revenue share in future growth. What Stargaze gets : deep ATOM liquidity, Hub-grade security, and full IBC Eureka reach, removing the limitations of a small app chain, and enabling cross-chain mints, trades, and launches from any wallet. Component | ATOM Requested | Vesting /…
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Stargaze has been my home since the wonderful days of launching Pixel Wizards. It’s not just a platform.. it’s a place where I found joy, creativity, and connection. The vibrant, passionate community across so many collections made it irresistible to keep minting, trading, and having fun. Without Stargaze, I genuinely wouldn’t be where I am today. As someone lucky enough to also be part of the Stargaze team, I want to speak from the heart about what this merger truly means. The Cosmos isn’t just acquiring a protocol.. it’s welcoming a family. With this merger, you’re gaining: • A die-hard, deeply loyal community of minters, traders, creators, builders, and JPEG dreamers. People who don’t just talk about using the blockchain—they live it. They create value, spark joy, and keep showing up because Stargaze is their home. • A world-class team that doesn’t just dream big but actually delivers. We’ve shipped one of the best NFT products in the space, with love, grit, and attention to every detail. • A product that’s not just technically sound—it’s loved. Used daily. Embedded in culture. • And the cherry on top: BAD KIDS ARE COMING HOME! This isn’t just a merger. It’s a…
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First of all, I would like to thank Shane for this very interesting post. As an Atom holder for several years and a Stargaze user, I am happy to see the two chains/teams trying to join forces for a better future. I agree with Shane and the various opinions I’ve read that Stargaze would be a plus for the Cosmos Hub. We’ve been hearing for years that the majority of Cosmos is nothing more than a devcel circle jerk, with no dedicated user apps. Stargaze is, in my opinion, one of the only Cosmos app to have attracted and retained a large number of users, and I’m not talking about developers or influencers, but random people, you and me. The platform is rich in features not found elsewhere, and based solely on the user interface, it’s the best. I therefore positively support this proposal and hope to read interesting conversations between the different users on both sides in order to find a solution that pleases everyone. My only two uncertainties at this stage: • It seems that the number of users per month is a metric that has been taken up and quantified and added to the acquisition cost. Seems logical. However, when I read “20,000 monthly users,” my first feeling is that…
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blockshane:20k+ monthly active traders,
There are no 20k+ active users on Stargaze right now, isn’t it? Chain is already looks dead. Also are this Stargage users are new to the Hub? I think no.
Berny:A world-class team that doesn’t just dream big but actually delivers. We’ve shipped one of the best NFT products in the space, with love, grit, and attention to every detail.
U can’t fix UI bugs for months. World-class team can’t do simple steps? 
Oh sorry you were busy with failed Intergaze so u have no time to polish Stargaze. One more point about dead chain.
There is some minor bugs here and there, but overall I have used the platform seamlessly and without any issue for the past years. I found your comment unconstructive and overly negative for not much. Stargaze is very serviceable imo and I don’t think the point of this post is to create a new account just to dunk on Stargaze’s team.
Maybe to not look bitter and toxic you could make a professional post, listing properly type of bugs and issue you have with the platform.
Also, I agree we also need some clarification in regards of Intergaze. If the team focus on migrating stargaze to the Hub, what about intergaze ? How we know we don’t pay ressources to fund work on another platform not running on the Hub ? What’s the point of consolidation of chains/apps/outposts if we continue to create replicate all over the place?
I have seen many arguments from Stargaze team in favor of Intergaze as a need and solution to bring new users from EVM ecosystem, but this is not a fact but speculations and hopes. Moreover, if the goal is to leverage Hub IBC v2 and Eukera, targeting EVM and SOL users, then is this not the same goal/target than Intergaze ?
dude, you asking for 120k$ mo salary and 250k for infra with 20k month revenue. Don’t you see something wrong here?
Hub’s community pool purchased Stargaze, but I can’t see how Stargaze’s revenue is shared with Hub’s community pool? Stride Dex will even share 20% of its revenue with Hub.
Why does it cost 2.75M ATOM (@5.2=14.3M) to acquire a company with a market cap of 3M$ while its annual revenue is only 0.6M?
It’s losing money. If this is normal market behavior, let the market build a new NFT marketplace on Cosmos to compete, instead of Cosmos needing to acquire everything.
You can choose to proactively migrate to the Hub and retain your own token, or sooner or later, you’ll face competition from an NFT marketplace that will inevitably emerge on the Hub.
We’ve already seen this on other permissionless public chains: when the NFT market becomes profitable, multiple entrepreneurial teams will naturally start their businesses in this space.
In favor of the Stargaze acquisition & believe it can bring real value to the Cosmos Hub. The team has built something culturally important with real users and strong metrics & I’d love to see it thrive on the Hub.
But the proposed ask of 3.07M ATOM (~$15M) feels excessive especially considering:
- STARS FDV is ~$3.5M
- The token is in a clear downtrend
- A large part of the valuation comes from an arbitrary customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- 20k active member figure is exaggerated
I propose we need to find a middle ground for this to go through:
- ~$4.375M for STARS (a good 25% premium for goodwill)
- 48K ATOM for the frontend license,
- 276K ATOM for the team,
That brings the total to ~1.19M ATOM, or ~$6M , which is more aligned with current market value, sustainable for the Hub & still generous to the team & holders
I support this strategic merger, but we need to ensure the price reflects reality, not just sentiment or sunk effort .
I’m going to assume this is just a negotiation starting point as there is no way this is a serious request.
Alright, overall I’m in favor Stargaze joining the Hub makes sense culturally and strategically. The structure feels fair, and I appreciate the OP’s transparency in the write-up.
But a couple of things:
- Where’s the timeline if this passes?
Like, what happens Day 1 after “Yes”? Some of us would like to understand how long this migration and ownership transition will really take. - Why 200-day price average?
I get the logic behind using a longer-term view to smooth out volatility, but why not 365 days? The 200-day MA undervalues STARS IMO — it dipped hard during periods of low liquidity, and recent momentum isn’t fully captured in that window. It’s not a dealbreaker, but I’d love to hear what made you settle on that specific average.
Still, I think the broader picture matters more — and I’d rather have Stargaze inside the Hub than siloed. Just want to see the rough edges discussed before we hit on-chain.
Is the funding request high?
Yes.
They are selling themselves to the hub at 4x current valuation + full staff + licensing fees for a year to rewrite the whole thing into EVM to keep a few collections that could probably just migrate to an EVM NFT marketplace fork anyways.
2 collections are 73% of NFT market cap.
Hypothetically, the hub could pay an EVM dev team to fork one of the numerous platforms and then airdrop to those 2 collections to migrate at a fraction of the price.
Got it.
But the birds are chirping, the foundation has already discussed the plan and given them the go-ahead. You as a validator, know a lot of validators will vote yes regardless. It would be interesting to see if it actually goes through or becomes another stride prop.
As a project that began its journey as part of Stargaze’s genesis collection, GATA HUB has grown alongside the chain and witnessed firsthand the hard work, innovation, and resilience of the Stargaze team. While the STARS token hasn’t always reflected the underlying value, we believe it’s crucial to separate price from product.
Stargaze is a truly exceptional NFT application, arguably the best in the entire ecosystem. The app works, it scales, and it’s creator-friendly. These are rare qualities. We can vouch not only for the tech, but for the builders behind it.
We support this proposal and trust the community to weigh the valuation fairly. Yes, some concerns have been raised around the valuation, and we understand them, but ultimately, we believe this move isn’t about short-term numbers; it’s about long-term alignment.
This acquisition could mark a turning point for the Hub: a chance to bring in its first killer app, built by a proven team that has delivered. That’s not just a win for Stargaze — that’s a win for Cosmos Hub.
The proposal for Cosmos Hub to acquire Stargaze is not only financially excessive—it is strategically unsound. This is less an acquisition and more a golden bailout of a declining project, packaged with inflated metrics, risky assumptions, and a price tag that borders on delusional. Massive Overvaluation Let’s begin with the headline number: 2.75 million ATOM requested for the STARS ➝ ATOM migration alone. That’s over $14 million at current prices for a token with a ~$3 million market cap and dwindling traction. • STARS price is pegged at a 200-day average of $0.00408, not the current market rate. Why? Because the current market clearly reflects where investors actually value it: significantly lower. • Including an arbitrary $3 million “customer acquisition cost” inflates this even further, essentially rewarding failure by equating Stargaze’s organic (and arguably flatlining) user base with what incentivized platforms spent. This valuation is not just aggressive—it’s insane . Even if we accept some strategic value in the brand, tech stack, or user base, the premium being asked is well beyond reason. Declining Performance in a Receding Market The proposal glosses…
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Is this your opinion, or is this what the AI thinks?
my opinion…
is that proposal real or AI generated?
Hard not to agree from a raw numbers perspective.
Curious to see how this plays out. Reading the room, seems many are in consensus that this is a really large price tag the community pool would be paying for a murky ROI thesis.
I would love to see SG on the Hub and take advantage of Eureka’s capabilities to expand beyond the borders of Cosmos, but the price has to be right. Stargaze’s back is against the wall economically and I respect Shane for doing what he can to do right for his team and community, but I think, unfortunately, they’re going to have to settle for much less in this case.
It would be good to discuss the alternative as well. What happens when the Hub does not acquire Stargaze? That is a question which needs to be answered as well. I would guess Stargaze would slowly fade into oblivion, which is a quite doomish and black scenario but also realistic. So not being acquired is not really an option for Stargaze imo. A lot of take-overs for companies are done where the company that is taken over is thriving and growing in value. That justifies overpaying in some cases. But this is different. We are talking about a project where valuation is declining and that is happening for a long time already. Just for reference, ATOM is up 16.3% over the past 30 days, whereas STARS is down 22.5%. That is a huge gap and a huge show of distrust in STARS as an asset. In a lot of cases you can easily say that it indeed a bailout as @0xphilipp_eris is rightfully saying. If we want the Cosmos ecosystem to be relevant, we need to stop overpaying inferior stuff. I can imagine we go for a 1:1 conversion of STARS to ATOM and that is already quite generous, since we can expect that the STARS value will dwindle further over time. So holders will lose overall which would…
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Also, this is obviously going to be contentious, but try to remember not to be dicks to each other and focus on the points being made, not the people making them.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
sounds like this guy’s trying to scam all the atom holders. we don’t need your dying marketplace that you think is worth 3M atom
Looks good, ready to move our project over to HUB! OG stargaze user and creator, very excited for the team and future on Atom!
Indeed, hate the game, not the players.
Discussions are held on the content. Good point.
We also need to view this like it is being paid by our own money. Would we ourselves pay this amount of money for Stargaze? That is a question everyone needs to answer for him/herself.
Hi, Mr T here, founder of Ark Protocol. We’ve built NFT bridges for 7 chains as a public good and are the clear leader in NFT bridging. I propose two adjustments to the Stargaze acquisition roadmap: blockshane: Months 4–7: EVM Contract Migration • IBC-native Launchpad Deployment (EVM) Rewrite Launchpad contracts in Solidity for Hub’s EVM environment. Mint from anywhere with any token. • Cosmos Hub Genesis Collections Launch Launch new collections exclusively on the Hub, with whitelists and airdrops for proposal voters. Include at least 3 high visibility mints. • IBC-native Marketplace Beta Deployment (EVM) Deploy Beta version of the EVM marketplace. • Open-Source Contracts: All EVM-based contracts (Launchpad, Marketplace) must be open-source and hosted in the Cosmos Hub’s official repo, not Stargaze’s Public Awesome repo. They must be 100% ERC-721 compatible to ensure seamless onboarding for Cosmos and EVM builders. blockshane: Months 8–10: Ecosystem Growth + IBC NFT Hub Routing • EVM ICS-721 (IBC Eureka) Upgrade Deploy Eureka-ready ICS-721 for interchain NFT routing via the Hub. • Exclude NFT Bridge: The ICS-721 bridge…
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Thanks for bringing this proposal to the forum @blockshane! Happy to get the conversation started.
It’s important that we approach this with a clear business mindset rather than being swayed by a feel good narrative.
I’m going to agree with @Golden-Ratio-Staking and chalk up the current asking price and ongoing maintenance to wanting a strong opening position for negotiation. I’ll share my concerns and the parts I’m excited about once the proposal is more fleshed out.
I support this prop 100%, Stargaze is the main app I use and check daily the one app I stuck with and survived the bear market alongside! It has proven its vakue as a hub for cosmos nfts and creators, and bringing it closer to the Hub could amplify its impact even more, Props to Shane for the vision, looking forward to what this collaboration can build together
This is yet another rug pull! Do not give’em a penny! If they want, they can continue to work, but DO NOT SPEND COMUNITY MONEY! Looks like the new CosmosHub team is the same as previous! Just came scam!
… and yes, Ark will also seek funding - but less and not all by the Hub’s CP. Like the community will fund us through our launch on the Hub with the first PFP collection (“HUBbits PFP”), coming in a few weeks. The revenue will keep Ark continuing building furter cross-chain NFT utilities.
Imho the Hub can minimize risks, letting more partner contribute! Like BackBone Labs, Asteroid Protocol, and us, Ark.
Let our work speak for itself:
Core Contributions:
- ICS-721 Bridge → Contributors to public-awesome/cw-ics721 · GitHub
- CW-NFT Contracts → Contributors to public-awesome/cw-nfts · GitHub
“BTC Ordinals” on Cosmos
- Asteroid Inscriptions merged into Ark: https://x.com/asteroidxyz/status/1859620352915067298
- Redphone, the mastermind on BTC Ordinals and Cosmos
- Asteroid Launchpad and Marketplace on the Hub: Asteroid Protocol | Inscribe anything on the Hub
Dr0ff:Looks like the new CosmosHub team is the same as previous! Just came scam!
I didn’t know the ICL worked for Stargaze. Wow! Big skem!
The whole point of the forum is to discuss these things.
I would be more in favor of a migration fund to help with the costs of migrating rather than an outright acquisition.
Anchor is too high.
As is, this proposal is too far from a true bargaining zone imo.
I’s unclear what’s actually being acquired.
Core assets, such as the frontend infra and IP remain under Stargaze’s control, with the Hub behaving as a sponsor.
This proposal is a structure for subsidizing Stargaze in exchange for integration and “hub alignment,” without acquiring real assets with real control.
Typically, in acquisition contexts, key assets are purchased/transferred, not leased.
What I see is a very expensive partnership deal.
Mr T and his Team are doing a great job, and I am giving them my support!
blockshane:Funds will be distributed to the Stargaze-Hub Oversight DAO, a new DAO to be formed immediately after the passage of this proposal, made up of 3 members representing Stargaze, 3 representing the Hub, and 1 external rotating auditor. The Oversight DAO will distribute 20% of the funds to the Stargaze team for each quarterly milestone after an initial 20% distribution.
Can you clarify what is meant by “a new DAO”? Is this intended to be a formal legal entity, separate and distinct from Public Awesome LLC?
Additionally, do you mean that this new entity will have an integrated oversight capacity?
How will the Hub representatives be selected, and how do you ensure they’re qualified to represent the Hub’s interests effectively?
Thanks for your proposal @blockshane
I’d also be interested in learning about Intergaze:
- How will that affect Stargaze (on Hub) user base, volume and general competitiveness;
- How the team will allocate focus and time between the two projects.
And from others, it would be good to hear from other Cosmos NFT / NFT-adjacent projects - since funding this from CP effectively means Hub is choosing “a winner”.
And people’s thoughts on Hub pursuing Open Sea and Magic Eden (migration, outpost, integration - w/e) - I’m aware intros had been made, though not sure anyone of “authority” actually followed it up.
Maybe a crazy take , but instead of the hub buying out stargaze, why doesn’t the HUB INVEST in stargaze. Take some money and buy the token at market price as an " investment ". Team up with the stars team and find a way to remodel the tokenomics (ex: stop inflation, increase fees and take percentage to buy back and burn the token)
This approach would save a ton of $$$ and work on migrating the entire chain, would bring some confidence back into the token. Just my two cents
Questions to consider: 1. Should the hub fund a premium NFT marketplace that isn’t yet self-sustaining? There’s a reason Magic Eden and Opensea thrive on chains with deep liquidity, premium infra needs premium capital. Stargaze’s current burn rate isn’t sustainable. Maybe that changes with mass onboarding and an NFT resurgence (which I believe will come). 2. Are we bailing out STARS holders to pay for tech R&D? Funding infra ($250k/year) and salaries ($120k/month) is high but reasonable for a quality NFT marketplace. But buying out token holders? What do we get from that? (Except saving my bags) 3. Is there another way that aligns incentives between hub and STARS token holders? I think so: Keep the STARS token alive, and let the hub buy STARS at a fixed rate from sellers. This is an optional exit for holders, not a forced bailout. Kill inflation, migrate the chain to hub and use all marketplace fees to buy back/burn STARS. This gives ATOM holders potential upside on Stargaze ($STARS) and the NFT community. I feel this would be a hub investment for the long term, instead of a bailout that deletes the token. Final thoughts I would love to keep Stargaze…
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0% chance Stargaze has 20k monthly active unique traders/users and using that as a factor in valuation of customer acquisition like they’re not already mostly Cosmos users seems wild to me.
Then randomly using 4x current valuation by using 200day moving average is outlandish.
I consider this a non-starter without wildly reworking the CAC methodology.
Brazenly overvalued. Another example of entitlement in web3.
Honestly, the acquisition of Stargaze — with a market cap barely hitting $3 million — feels more like a bailout than a strategic investment. And it’s hard not to notice how the Hub is drifting away from its original mission of building infrastructure.
A $16 million offer? That’s five times the current market cap. It seems pretty bold, especially for a project that doesn’t look profitable . The market cap alone tells the story.
I haven’t gone through every single detail, but from where I stand, Stargaze looks like a project in decline. Offering holders four times the current value of their tokens raises a lot of questions. Why the handout?
Also, what does Stargaze really bring to the table that other platforms — some with 10 to 100 times the valuation — don’t already offer? And why wasn’t the more obvious route of making it a consumer chain considered?
Finally, if this project is really as promising as some suggest, then why is the token price collapsing? That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
I don´t see it.
How can you say 1. The Project isn´t self-sustaining. and 2. you say a 20 k a month(each if they have 6 members) is resonable.
The price tag of this merger has to come down tremdously for ATOM holders.
I 100% support @mr-t and the Ark team, they have delivered industry leading infrastructure with their previous successful proposals and their proposed adjustments here will allow everyone to prosper via more tech advancements across the space.
I love Stargaze. But objectively speaking, if the hub is going to spend $16M on acquiring an NFT marketplace, it may as well build its own marketplace.
That will cost a fraction of this very likely, and it would leave aaaample budget for a go to market strategy to acquire users - of which it also has an existing base of loyal users.
There’s definitely also an overlap between Stargaze users and the Hub - so as many have stated already, the acquisition cost seems overstated.
Would be cool to see Stargaze on the Hub but objectively speaking, the math is simply not mathing on this one.
I’d like to address the comments about the ask and why we are valuing Stargaze at this price. STARS suffers from extremely low liquidity, a $10k buy moves price over 20%.
This means that by valuing Stargaze on the last price/current market cap makes it extremely easy to manipulate. A small, strategic investment could rapidly increase STARS market cap, easily surpassing the current suggestions of where ATOM holders see “value”.
For this reason, we’ve chosen to value it based on the 200 MA which doesn’t allow any bad actors to come in and game this where they could push the price of STARS up, then dump the ATOM they receive.
I’d love to hear how other people think it should be valued based on this.
This can’t be serious, right??
The overvaluation of a chain that’s clearly dying is insane. Cosmos Community Pool is not a milking cow to bail out a failed project and a team that mismanaged their own chain.
- There are nowhere near 20k monthly active users. No way !!!
- You can’t compare Magic Eden with SG,not even close in terms of UI/UX. ME and Tensor are years ahead.
- Most NFT trading volume on SG is just wash trading. Look at BK, Sloths, Omies, Wandering Whale, etc.
- Regarding communities,it’s the same small group of people jumping from one project to another,no real user base or growth. Above projects share the same community members.
- $120K/month for the team? This is LULU land. So the plan is to milk the Cosmos CP?
This is way way overvalued. It looks more like a cash grab,a bailout for the SG team,using the community pool. This doesn’t benefit ATOM holders or stakers at all.
Seeing the alternative that Backbone Labs is proposing (a free marketplace), and considering what Ark Protocol has achieved with way less funding than SG had,and is still asking for,the acquisition of SG just doesn’t make sense !
What I gather from all this is: Stargaze needs a bailout from the Hub and there is no Plan B.
16M for a 3M chain? For NFTs? In this economy?
Even if the Hub wants to think long-term and pretend people will care about NFTs again, Backbone_Labs wants to deploy an NFT Platform FOR FREE. (and much more)
A hard no from me.
(I have been staking and manually restaking (almost every week) my original STARS airdrop and voted on almost all onchain governance proposals. Even though this would help me get rid of those bags it would hurt ATOM way more)
The angle for Magic Eden might not even be that bad. Maybe we should rethink this one and propose to rewrite rebuilding Stargaze in such a way that it can be seamlessly integrated into Magic Eden. I am not familiar enough with Magic Eden, but it would be a win for the Hub, since it would allow to approach an userbase outside the Cosmos ecosystem (something we desperately need imo).
The process should entail something like this:
- migrate Stargaze to the Hub
- rewrite in such a way that it can be connected to Magic Eden
- make the integration a reality
And then go from there. NFTs running on the Hub will have the opportunity to approach a new userbase and it will enlarge the awareness of the Cosmos ecosystem.
The valuation might be too high, but it’s clear that we have to do something different in the Cosmos ecosystem. I’d vote yes to this, just to make some change, but I understand why everyone’s saying the ask is too much.
This also flies in the face of the Cosmos ethos, but I’m ok with that for now. We have to figure out some why to get more users in to Cosmos. Every chain is going to die if we don’t attract more users.
This proposal is far from perfect, but it’s a wild swing that could save the Cosmos, or at least hasten the slow death we’re all experiencing.
Thanks for putting up this proposal Shane.
Unfortunately the asking price is so immense, that I wouldn’t want to give it any deeper thought on whether that’s a good purchase price or not, nor is that any good way to start negotiations in good faith.
Only in Crypto we ignore common business sense and practices, help out a failing projects or bail them out.
Other NFT projects already expressed their willingness to deploy for free, what’s the reasoning not to work together with them and just ignore Stargaze after that offer?
Great feedback ser! Let me address both questions: It seems that the number of users per month is a metric that has been taken up and quantified and added to the acquisition cost. I understand your concern about Sybil accounts since its a common practice in crypto. But first, you can check for yourself that 20k is correct by analyzing onchain events. Even Minstcan shows 19k for the last 30-days . Stargaze is a very social platform where people like to flex their collections – which I’d assume leads to fewer Sybil accounts. All of these accounts, regardless if they are Sybil or not, still will pay 3,000 ATOM in gas if migrated to the Hub. Do have other ideas on how to account for bringing on such an active userbase to the Hub? My second point would be about the elephant in the room, which was not mentioned at all in the proposal, the infinite extraction of value Alright this is a valid concern and should be addressed. First of all, a down chart doesn’t always mean extraction. When TSLA goes down, it doesn’t mean Elon is selling. The chart is based on market sentiment, volume, and liquidity. That said, Stargaze unfortunately did have a large extraction event early on…
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olha_v:
Hey Tagu!
The monthly active user estimate is taken from Mintscan, the same source for all Cosmos chains compared. The point is really how Stargaze compares to other chains in the eco using a consistent metric. The ratio is what matters and I don’t think Stargaze has more sybil accounts than other chains.
Actually when we see projects come from other ecos with tiered WL systems for a big mint (e.g. testnet users or stakers Tier 1, then SG projects tier 2), the sybil red flags tend to appear in the phase that samples from outside the Stargaze userbase. Of course it could be that SG users are just more crafty and less likely to move all their NFTs to a single wallet after minting like we saw Union testnet users do with Whalesharks for example 
NFTs are worn on socials and often tied to Discord accounts for gating, directly connected to socials via Stargaze names, etc. in a way that fungible tokens are not, which deters sybil activity.
Of course it can’t be eliminated completely but SG probably has more measures in place than any chain and still has a significantly outsized userbase relative to chains that have less measures in place to deter sybil activity.
With all due respect and the shared goal of wanting success for ATOM, from my perspective as both an ATOM and STARS holder you and many others on this forum who are against this proposal are missing the forest for the trees. The language you are using to highlight the downsides to ATOM, like “massive” and “immense”, is hyperbolic considering the context and stakes. A purchase price of $3M or $15M is a very small fraction of ATOM’s market cap and will have much less of an impact than (1) if the proposal to acquire Cosmos’ leading nft marketplace is accepted or rejected (regardless of the reason) and (2) if the proposal is accepted, the success of the project and its impact on ATOM. The upside of this proposal to the ATOM brand is very large – namely the nft marketplace helps the HUB to accelerate strong multifunction utility complimenting increasing interoperability/IBC Eureka, the rollout of the Stride Dex, and the upcoming EVM compatibility and other protocol enhancements. There is also downside to the ATOM brand if the nft marketplace stays/becomes moribund or the proposal collapses with unconstructive debate reminiscent of past infighting. In sum, I believe the stakes are…
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Have taken some time to consider this.
My fundamental question is what is the hub actually acquiring?
It seems that it is a culturally rich loss making application.
Am in favour of finding a different model of buyout in an attempt to find a way to Shane and the team a runway to profitability and allows STARS token holders to be exposed to future upside. The model proposed above doesn’t feel suitable for a loss making protocol.
Something like this could be viable.
$X to team tied to unlocking kpis over a year with vesting over a further Y months.
The app moves to hub, but keeps the token (CP gets burned). Use a% revenue to buy and burn stars and b% to buy atom. After a period of time the buying stars can be replaced with paying the team but the atom % remains.
This would give the team a run way. Would raise the stars price if the chain stars to be as successful as suggested above. And would give atom a slice of the action. There would be risk on all sides but also benefits.
John_Donovan: I also believe it is in our interest to trust Barry and Mag and their strategic direction and not to second-guess their reasonable choices unless and until their strategy fails or they propose something off the wall. So far they have been very successful in aggressively changing ATOM for the better in their new roles leading the ICF as well as in their prior roles leading Skip. I’m rooting for them and support their strategy, including this new opportunistic proposal to advance it. I think it’s inaccurate to imply that @bpiv400 @Mag are meaningfully involved with the proposal. I’ve heard them being notionally supportive of exploring a possible acquisition, I doubt they support the numbers or reasoning attached to the valuation. The ask involves 3.075m of 9.6m ATOM from the Hub community pool . The pool is not a treasury controlled by the ICF. The ICF/L has no discretionary control over the allocation of these funds. While ICF/L employees may and can have influence in our discussions, the authority wrt to how these funds are used rests with the consensus of ATOM stakers. It’s the community that must be trusted to evaluate and decide on the…
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Given that Stargaze has outcompeted all other NFT marketplaces in the Cosmos to date I don’t really think this would be “choosing a winner” but rather listening to the broader userbase and choosing the best native product. Stargaze has always been committed to the ecosystem and won the vast marketshare despite numerous competitor launchpad + marketplaces receiving funding from various sources over the years and delivering worse product. Top collections from those competitors now trade primarily on Stargaze and funds that went elsewhere a waste. If all Cosmos chains whitelisted ICS721 for all of their collections to allow trading anywhere, Stargaze would already dominate further. It’s a no brainer to me to just join forces already. For Intergaze, first we can look at what it is now with no Hub merger in place: We committed to building it and delivered it before this proposal went up. I’m optimistic and excited about deployment on the Hub, but since it is an uncertainty then naturally in the meantime Stargaze has pursued deployments elsewhere (strong demand from creator and user feedback.) Intergaze is a bespoke launchpad + marketplace for the Initia ecosystem and for a…
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This is a valid concern. Intergaze dev started before there was any kind of discussion about migrating to the Hub. Obviously, if the Stargaze team is paid for development, it should all go to Stargaze. Part of the reason for creating the Oversight DAO is to watch out for conflicts of interest like this. The Oversight DAO can block team funding if they find any kind of misuse of funds. That said, we could include Intergaze as part of this deal, with Intergaze profit going to ATOM stakers. Initia is part of the greater Cosmos ecosystem after all.
I know this may seem like a lot, but you have some of the details wrong. Average revenue is 50k and we have hit over 150k in our best months. The team allocation is for 1 year, with the goal of achieving sustainability. Fund distribution is also gated behind an Oversight DAO. If Stargaze is on the Hub, the increased exposure will lead to more volume – which leads to more revenue. So most likely there will be no need to fund the team for any more than one year.
You may have missed this part where profit is distributed to ATOM stakers: “15% of fees are distributed to ATOM stakers that use Stargaze for 5 years.” Would you rather have profit go directly to the Community Pool over ATOM stakers?
I’m all for competition and fully support entrepreneurs that build. But in Cosmos’ 8 year history, no one else has been able to build an NFT platform better than Stargaze and capture the mindshare of the ecosystem. Also, industry-wide, there’s only a handful of really great options (Stargaze is #4 world-wide by revenue). If this stuff is easy to build, why has no one else done it better yet? How much volume is Asteroid doing? The Hub is not just buying tech – it’s buying thousands of active traders, NFT liquidity, culture, a high functioning team, and more.
Patience, in two years it’ll be worth 500k$ 
blockshane:Stargaze Team Funding 276,923 ATOM Stargaze-Hub Oversight DAO One year transitional fund for a six-to-eight-person lean team ($120k / mo) to run marketplace, support launches & ship roadmap. Distributed quarterly from the DAO.
@blockshane could you provide a breakdown of the proposed team roles along with their projected compensation?
Additionally, is this compensation consistent with what the team members are currently paid?
Re: DAO, please respond to this
There some good suggestions here, so thanks for that.
STARS FDV is ~$3.5M
There was a significant drawdown after news of a merger was leaked on TG. So do you think it’s appropriate to use today’s FDV when it was impacted by the leak? The impact of it is far greater than 25% as it caused large validators to off-board, which not only caused a draw down in price, but also destroyed any remaining liquidity.
20k active member figure is exaggerated
This is from on-chain NFT activity. You can verify it for yourself, or refer to Minstcan which shows a similar number.
Where’s the timeline if this passes?
A 1 year roadmap is proposed in the post, with the migration taking ~3 months.
Why 200-day price average? The 200-day MA undervalues STARS IMO.
I agree it undervalues STARS since much of the price action is due to low liquidity. But I think it smooths out the recent drawdown that happened after the TG leak, and strikes a good balance with the current market cap. It’s also a key metric used in tradfi mergers and acquisitions.
Can you link to an EVM fork that includes: frontend, backend APIs, indexing, IPFS hosting thats super fast and actually works, image processing services, geo-distributed image serving cluster, geo-distributed optimized read-only RPC cluster, no-code creator tooling, mobile app, a team that manages social media, does weekly X spaces, and provides support to creators and traders 24/7?
LeonoorsCryptoman:ATOM is up 16.3% over the past 30 days, whereas STARS is down 22.5%.
I’d be concerned about this too without context. But for context, the recent drawdown happened after it was leaked that a merge would occur. This caused some large validators to panic and off-board, destroying the price. Do you think its reasonable to use the current price knowing that this occurred? That’s why we’re suggesting the 200-day moving average. If not that, what would you use?
LeonoorsCryptoman:I would guess Stargaze would slowly fade into oblivion, which is a quite doomish and black scenario but also realistic.
Absolutely not. We have other options if it doesn’t work out. You realize there are other CosmWasm chains right? We’re a resilient team that survived a massive rug, a massive bear market, and can build anything anywhere.
Yes, definitely plan to open source all contracts. Haven’t we always? Happy do it in the Cosmos repo if that’s allowed.
Mind disclosing how much funding you got from Stargaze versus the others? Would you still be around if Stargaze didn’t fund you for years and support the development of cw-ics721? We can collaborate here and build great things.
What valuation methodology would you use?
I think the ask is a little on the high side of things with the current state, but Stargaze does bring a lot to the table. Could be really good having the cultural hub on THE hub.
Would be cool if there was also a way to benefit users(mint/trade vol or transactions) and/or creators(Featured, Team Picks, etc) alongside stakers, holders, and the team - though I’m not sure how that could be structured.
Either way, The Wadsquad & Wadz are rooting for the best for both parties 
Thank You Shane for your explanation. I still feel the valuation I quoted (~1.2M ATOM / ~$6M) is more appropriate.
My core view is this: we should focus on saving the project and the team, not the STARS token. That’s why I kept the licensing and team comp figures unchanged. But STARS has been on a downtrend long before January and as an ATOM holder, my concern is that those who’ve been dumping STARS for months may simply dump their ATOM if they receive that high premium now.
Also, If you view STARS like a web2 equity share (which it isn’t, given token ≠ team IP in web3), then the chart clearly signals 0—making a 4x premium even harder to justify for any rational buyer.
Lastly, I’ve been part of similar projects that built sustainably without a token for years. I’m confident the Stargaze team can continue building the brand regardless. And the CAC angle doesn’t hold much weight here. Please appreciate the fact that most of us active on Stargaze are already Hub users, so there’s little net-new acquisition happening.
Please request to offer something more reasonable that’s respectful to the builders at SG, but also sustainable for the Hub.
Thank You
I think it’s wrong to say the early leak caused the price to be where it is right now. You can clearly see the two big sale events at the start of May, but the token had a downward trajectory before that.
My suggestion to the SG team is to focus on the product and the team runway and avoid the token swap, don’t see a world where ATOM stakers will vote favourably on it.
I think the confusion stems from the term “users” instead of “wallets” or “accounts”. I have no problem with the 20,000 connections per month, if Mintscan say so then it’s true. But these are not 20,000 real, unique users. Though, I agree that whether they are real users or accounts, it doesn’t affect fees or revenue. Unfortunately, none of the arguments presented actually limit the use of sybil accounts; quite the contrary, everything in the Cosmos ecosystem incentives and rewards airdrop farming. Many users have multiple Discords and Twitter accounts, and even without that, spreading your NFTs across multiple wallets has always worked out and is still relevant for big and small projects. As I said, I spent a lot of time tracking and scanning wallets on Stargaze whenever I saw suspicious activity. Hundreds of users, the most active ones, have multiple wallets for various reasons, most Cosmos users/stargaze users have multiple wallets. If Mintscan says 20,000 wallets, I wouldn’t be surprised if 5,000 or 6,000 are sibyls. Of the remaining hypotetical 14,000 users, how many already owned and staked ATOM? To consider. Agree with above comment that the donwside of STARS token…
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I would use one that is more grounded in reality.
ME & Tesla are not comparable at all to the reality of what stargaze is today.
This is more akin to a private market acquisition with low low low liquidity and a large haircut is in expected in order to get a deal done.
Use realistic active user metrics. Not just high level mintscan wallet data. Segregate out Sybil’s and users that already interact in the cosmos.
Be honest about intergaze and either wrap that in or be honest that you have a competitor that is already engaging with sg creators and will also continued to be working on after any possible merger.
I want this to happen, but you gotta bring some realism before the silent majority writes this off entirely.
I’ll share the rest of my feedback once this proposal is more realistic.
Stargaze has been my home since the genesis launch with Women From Cosmos. I had the opportunity to see my vision come to live, to build a project based on ART and have the chance to support different independent artists along the way. As an independt artist myself, I could never have imagined everything I accomplish during these past years, so my gratitude to Stargaze community and Stargaze team for the incredible welcoming they gave me and the amount of help is obviously a big factor for me to want to see the potential Stargaze has being recognized. Along the past years, I saw tons of people had their first interaction with the Cosmos Eco thanks to Stargaze and the creators who have decided to continue building and creating on it. I think bringing Stargaze to he HUB is the clever thing to do: It means bring home the n1 Cosmos NFT marketplace. Making it all unite in one place. Stargaze is a truly exceptional NFT marketplace, which scales and continue implementing new features to keep making everything easier for the community and creators in the space. I believe this acquisition would be a win-win both to Stargaze and the Cosmos Hub. Disclaimer: Yes, I’m a genesis…
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Would you love to own Atom? And do you think 16m is fair? @mamoresxiv
As a creator i can say the community and vibe is very active , i am 100% sure moving to the hub will leverage this. I have always been an atom holder almost all in so its even greater to bring my project home basically. That said , i can also see that 4x stars prices is to much of a premium , without take over it will end on 0$ so a 2x premium is more then enough to me and probably acceptable for ma atom bois 
I like the proposal, but the team salary seems high: I hope this is the right occasion to lower it, either if it migrates on ATOM or stays on STARS. I would like more details on the salaries. When a company is not performing, something needs to be cut. I would like the community of stakers to be able to decide or at least influence, and for sure to check, your salaries.
Thank you.
Brady:If all Cosmos chains whitelisted ICS721 for all of their collections to allow trading anywhere, Stargaze would already dominate further. It’s a no brainer to me to just join forces already.
On all 5 chains operated by us, Ark, we’ve have made ics721 permissionless: Injective, Terra2, Neutron, Cosmos Hub and Juno. Any collection from there bridged to SG are automatically listed. Only bridges on Omosis and Stargaze are gated - those are owned by SG team. Afaik the latest and most succesful collection - on other chains than Stargaze - was Mad Scientist. MS revenue so far: $1.8M USD since its inception 13 months ago. Imho most collections stay on their home chain - but that’ll change.
Analysis of Stargaze Proposal and Constructive Suggestions Core Issues with the Proposal (Without Dismissing Its Merit) While valid concerns exist—such as potentially excessive team salaries during a dormant NFT market, operational challenges (reasons unaddressed), and a $15M valuation that may seem steep given ATOM’s current lack of ecosystem-wide value capture and the altcoin market’s stagnation— these should not justify outright rejection . The focus must remain on preserving and evolving Cosmos’ cultural fabric, which transcends short-term market fluctuations. The ecosystem’s true value lies in its interconnected projects (ATOM, TIA, INJ, BABY, DYDX, OSMO, etc.), and dismissing its cultural consensus risks squandering its potential to become the next “SOL”—a blockchain capable of sustaining long-term value. Why Stargaze Is Indispensable to Cosmos • Product Leadership in NFT Markets Stargaze ranks among the top globally in NFT market product experience and completeness, setting a benchmark for usability and innovation. • Cultural Heart of Cosmos NFTs It hosts iconic NFT projects like BAD KIDS —a foundational piece for many Cosmos users’ first NFT…
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blockshane:Cosmos Hub Genesis Collections Launch
Launch new collections exclusively on the Hub, with whitelists and airdrops for proposal voters. Include at least 3 high visibility mints.
Just a thought, but maybe the Stargaze team could collab w/ @cortlandt or others to do some crowd-funding for the transition with a premium NFT collection? I bet you could raise a good chunk of Atom that way.
Semantics on the word fork, that’s my bad.
To clarify, if we can’t get Magic Eden or Opensea to deploy on the Hub EVM for less than $15m, we’re all cooked.
Got it. I believe the same prop will pass from the Stargaze governance too.
My initial comment focused on constructive feedback - though I was confused about including new EVM-based bridge into this prop. As mutual partners I’ve expected we’d discuss this beforehand - as Ark has always(!) openly communicated on all matters. Spoiler: imho below is off-topic - so skip it in case u like to stay on-topic, but I’d like to properly respond on what Shane is implying. First things first: I RESPECT you, Shane, and your team for what you’ve accomplished so far. Especially Michael Sotto, aka humanalgorithm - imho invaluable! RESPECT! Ark fundings blockshane: Mind disclosing how much funding you got from Stargaze versus the others? Would you still be around if Stargaze didn’t fund you for years and support the development of cw-ics721? We can collaborate here and build great things. Unclear intent, but we’re all seeking CP funding to survive, right? Frankly speaking and re-balancing your statement: Everyone - except Ark - benefitted from our x-chain bridge, Ark has built. I believe in `give and take`, I may be wrong, but I dont like the `dont bite the hand that feeds u` message I read here between the lines. Please respect for what…
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Yes 90% of Mad Scientist trading happens on Stargaze. A more recent one was Architects.
What are the steps and fees at present for a collection on Talis that wishes to trade on Stargaze utilizing Ark?
Just need to transfer to Stargaze and it can be listed on their marketplace. Initially royalties are set to 0% - so creators need to raise a ticket for handling ownership to creator wallet - so they can change royalties and provide wallet for royalties revenue.
Like you can join Ark discord, open a ticket and we prepare prop on DAODAO for SG and Ark team to approve and sign.
Why would any ATOM holder want to buy stars at a premium?
Buying out STARS does not in any way purchase the team and the UI/infra that supports stargaze.
It’s not that we want to buy stars at a premium but we could accept a realistic ask because I tend to agree a project can be more than just its current price.
Personally I would prefer the token to disappear and take with it its negative aspect so the platform can live on without the burden of a token trending to zero indefinitely.
long-time lurker since 2022, never made a governance post but been participating since prop 69 I’m a huge believer in the Cosmos vision of the interchain, having moved my holdings off Coinbase to dive deeper into the IBC with the launch of OSMOSIS ecosystem. My passion lies in true interchain DeFi and NFTs—where holders decide where to list their tokens, not us collections, marketplaces, platforms, or creators. That’s the decentralized dream, right? I’m thrilled to see bridges recognized as public goods in this thread. The ICS-721 bridge feels like a game-changer, empowering holders to choose their preferred platforms freely. It’s exciting to see the interchain vision coming to life! As does the EVM one in the OP. As a creator, though, I have some technical concerns about the Stargaze migration and ICS-721. I’ve raised these in live spaces and brainstorming sessions, but I’d love to hear more clarity here. Specifically: NFT Provenance & Migration: For IBC-enabled chains with original provenance on Stargaze, what happens to tokens that have already bridged out? We now have a Neutron based DAODAO, We’re Available on Osmosis through Fractal.Fun and would love to see…
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As an active NFT trader in SG, I doubt this data and think you are dishonest because you do not distinguish between NFT trading users and SG active users, the latter includes Stars related activities. What if we only count active users related to NFT trading? Please show your sincerity and professionalism, and be less tricky.
I am a diamond holder and active member of Bad Kids, and also an active member of the ATOM community. This proposal is so disappointing and full of deception and trickery. • Data fraud: 20,000 active users per month are from the SG chain, not NFT-related user data. Regarding NFT user data again, the ATOM community does not care about any user data of Stars, SG Proposal, or SG chain Deposit & Withdraw. • Why do you want so much from the ATOM community: Shane can try to build an NFT market for TIA for free (he gave up), and build an NFT market Intergaze for Initia for free, but when facing ATOM, he asked for 3.1M ATOM to acquire himself, but was stingy in return, and the income distribution was so harsh “Stargaze team proposes a revenue share program with the Hub above that threshold where 15% of fees are distributed to ATOM stakers that use Stargaze for 5 years.” I can’t understand why it’s not the other way around, 85% goes to the ATOM community and 15% goes to the SG team. After all, you are being acquired, right? Why? • The valuation calculation is illogical. Why is it calculated based on the 200-day moving average and the current 4 times price? • Illogical increase in…
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I get that Stargaze feels friendly and that the team listens to users and creators, that’s expected when your community is small. But let’s be honest: that’s a sign the project isn’t gaining real traction. If Stargaze had millions of users, they wouldn’t be able to give creators that level of personal attention. It’s time to take emotion out of the equation, this is business. And in business, a project that isn’t profitable simply has no value.
After taking the time to read carefully all the feedbacks, I would say that the strategic vision of integrating Stargaze to the hub is fine. Fusioning this OG project with the new ATOM vision is relevant according to me (nonetheless, details have to be clarified imo). Probably not at that price though. Would be interesting to see the stargaze team willing to re-consider their price and offer. Let us build and stop trying to take advantage of ATOM CP. Thanks for reading me.
Shane has always been ambitious. If he asks for 3M USD of funding, then bridges all NFT data to ATOM, deploys funds in ATOM, and invests instead of mergers and acquisitions, the SG team can handle everything freely, which is more reasonable and realistic.
Montagu from Citadel One here, Disclaimer: Citadel One is a validator on both the Cosmos Hub and Stargaze. The proposal asks the Hub to: • Purchase all $STARS tokens ( including Community Pool tokens) at a x3.3 premium for $11M • Pay $3M for Stargaze users • Pay $250K/year for Stargaze’s front-end licence • Pay $1.44M to fund the team In return, the Hub would receive: • Gas fees from Stargaze economic activity • A 15% revenue share for ATOM stakers who use Stargaze — but only after monthly fees exceed $120,000, which is x2.4 current revenue If this moves on-chain, Citadel One will vote No . Here’s why: 1. Valuation While a premium is usually applied, the implied valuation ( more than triple the current market cap and approx 11x revenue multiple) is way off and can’t be substantiated by any of the arguments presented in the proposal. 2. Terms • All of requested funds ( except team funding) are instantly liquid, with no vesting or performance-based unlocks. • The rev share conditions ( if I understood correctly) are contingent on the platform earning a minimum of $120k monthly ( x2.4 current revenue) to sustain itself. After which, Hub stakers are…
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On behalf of the PRO Delegators’ validator team and our community, we strongly recommend not proceeding on-chain with the current proposition in its present form. If the Stargaze team’s initial intent toward a potential merger is to be pursued seriously, it should involve the engagement of a professional M&A advisory firm to provide a neutral and thorough assessment of both parties’ financial standing and to outline a clear, viable integration plan.
As it stands, the breakdown presented appears heavily biased, lacking the depth and impartiality required for a decision of this magnitude. Pushing this to an on-chain vote prematurely, without a proper due diligence process and independent professional review, would not only jeopardize the acquisition’s credibility—it could also undermine trust in the governance process itself.
Thank your for reading,
Govmos.
Agree with all the sentiment shared here and as a token holder of ATOM, this proposal passing in its current state would turn me extremely bearish on the Hub.
The essence of a good proposal is that it should factor in community sentiment and recalibrate so that whatever deal is to be voted on onchain - actually feels like a win for both parties rather than some attempt at value extraction that can’t be credibly substantiated.
Again, I like Stargaze. My issue is purely the fact that the math provided here makes very little sense for anyone who has even a basic business sense.
This is a fair take. Maybe the frontend can be open sourced as part of this deal, with the Hub becoming the owner of it. Or the frontend ask can be entirely removed, and be funded from revenue or a fee switch.
20,000 monthly active users is a joke. I doubt whether the entire COSMO ecosystem has 20,000 monthly active users. Can I say I have 20,000 monthly active users if I use 20,000 robot accounts?
All projects come to ATOM to cheat money. I doubt whether the poster’s investigation is due diligence and whether he is a stakeholder. After all, anyone who knows the COSMOS ecosystem should know that 20,000 monthly active users is obviously a fraud, and the price is so high, it is simply a fraud.
If the ATOM community approves this plan, I think ATOM is finished, which means that ATOM is in the hands of a group of people who only want to squeeze out the value of HUB.
My suggestion is that 0 ATOM is given to SG. It is hard to say how much value NFT itself has, not to mention that it is an NFT project in the COSMOS ecosystem, not to mention an NFT project that is declining.
In addition, I suggest investigating the poster because he is using gorgeous data to defraud the community
I understand the confusion over Intergaze. It was started way before any thought of a Hub merger. Maybe it can be bundled as part of this deal, with Intergaze revenue going to ATOM stakers or the Hub Community Pool.
Re: Choosing a winner. I’ve said this before but it’s extremely difficult to build what Stargaze has built. If another team tries, they will also go through 4 years of learning and iterating at least to get where we are. It is very hard to build a lasting and loyal community of creators and traders. Few NFT marketplaces of late has taken off – Asteroid (no trades in 6 days), Forma, Pallet, etc. Stargaze has already won.
The acquisition is undoubtedly to use the ATOM of the HUB community as a huge exit liquidity for STARS
Considering that the main issue with the token is liquidity, I think this is a valid suggestion and would be open to it. And just to clarify that its a common misunderstanding that STARS has high inflation – it actually has one of the lowest inflation rates in Cosmos at 4.3% and is further reduced by 1/3 every year until it reaches 0%. See tokenomics.
I think this is a great alternative suggestion Zerk!
I’m overall in favor Stargaze joining the Hub.
Would you consider not including $STARS token in the acquisition proposal?
With a rough estimate that would make acquisition 1/3 of the value.
Token could then migrate to Cosmos Hub (for the culture) and function as it does.
Yes I’m sure there’s overlap between Cosmos Hub users and Stargaze users. But if you’re going to say there is 0% chance of Stargaze monthly active users, you will have to prove it with onchain data. Onchain metrics prove it, and it corresponds to what is on Mintscan as well. Overlapping users can be removed from CAC.
Note that activity is decreasing due to the uncertainty around the merger.
The reason for going with the 200-day moving average is because:
- The Telegram leak on Jan 23rd about a merger caused some validators to panic and off-board, destroying liquidity.
- The low mcap is mostly due to low liquidity. A $20k buy can increase the price by 70%.
So the 200-day SMA smoothes out the effects of these. It’s also commonly used in tradfi M&A. Happy to entertain any alternative suggestions. But at the very least, there has to be some kind of goodwill to account for [1].
Great point Winfred and the ask may be too high, but I’d offer a few counter-arguments:
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It’s not just about the tech. Cosmos has no culture without Stargaze and Bad Kids. Some say that Cosmos may not have survived the bear market without Stargaze.
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It’s very hard to get loyal users these days in crypto. As shown in the post, Blur has a CAC of $2,500. That’s $50M to acquire 20,000 users. And most of those will be airdrop farmers.
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There’s definitely overlap with users of Stargaze and Hub. That part will be eliminated in v2 of the prop.
There are nowhere near 20k monthly active users. No way !!!
Onchain data easily proves this. You can verify yourself or check Mintscan.
You can’t compare Magic Eden with SG,not even close in terms of UI/UX. ME and Tensor are years ahead.
One of the most common bits of feedback we get from users that they like Stargaze better than ME and Tensor because our UX/UI is superior.
Most NFT trading volume on SG is just wash trading. Look at BK, Sloths, Omies, Wandering Whale, etc.
Again, a claim without proof. CryptoSlam, an independent third party verified that Stargaze has almost no wash trading. Furthermore, the protocol has a listing fee that disincentivizes it.
Seeing the alternative that Backbone Labs is proposing…
Show me an example of where BBL got funded and actually delivered without rugging.
blockshane:Considering that the main issue with the token is liquidity
Maybe you could keep the Stars token alive (and out of the acquisition cost), but permanently lock the community pool in the Stride/any hub dex. 30% of the total Stars supply is in the community pool.
Could generate some fee revenue from that.
you are 100% right
Thank u for feedback
Honestly, never understood the fuss about stargaze. Its not worth that money. I dont think the hub should acquire it. If the sum is lowered to 2-3 mil as a validator we will vote yes, if thats what the hub wants. But contracts are almost here. Why?
Throughout the proposal, Shane defended his 20,000 monthly active users many times. It was so frustrating. As a builder and founder, he obviously knew the difference between NFT active users and chain active users, but Shane chose to lie to the end for money……
yea，the real value of SG lies in the accumulated NFT data, not anything else. The Cosmos Hub will be EVM based. Any current function of SG is not important. The only thing that matters is the current NFT data. This valuation should just base on the NFT data.
@blockshane please be accurate in your statements, especially with slanderous ones.
Your statement is categorically false.
The only grant we have ever received was from the migaloo foundation and we have bought them out.
I’d say that grant has been fulfilled.
Everything that we have achieved has been built from ground zero out of the terra collapse.
Strange move to say this about us, but we wish you well on your proposal.
blockshane: While the Foundation has sold some tokens to pay devs, it’s a small fraction of volume and liquidity. The biggest issue with the token is the lack of liquidity. For example, just a $10k buy can move the price over 20%. The plan was to add liquidity and do buyback and burns when the platform is profitable. But for that to happen, Stargaze needs more exposure. That’s why a Hub acquisition makes sense. Stargaze can remove itself of the shackles paying for securing the chain, and direct profits to ATOM stakers. See the section on Sustainabiity and Growth . This should surely be quoted in the ask for the platform. It should be noted in there that although it is a promising platform with a userbase, collections and more there is not much interest to acquire the asset. However, that is not priced in on the ask for the acquisition. blockshane: There was a significant drawdown after news of a merger was leaked on TG. So do you think it’s appropriate to use today’s FDV when it was impacted by the leak? The impact of it is far greater than 25% as it caused large validators to off-board, which not only caused a draw down in price, but also destroyed any…
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I do not have an opinion as to whether the should Hub move forward with the acquisition or not. That said, if the Hub does move forward with an acquisition, I strongly recommend that • the Hub does not try to do so in a single gulp, but rather gradually acquire Stargaze over time • the Hub minimizes the use of multisigs and maximizes automation Gradual Acquisition There are various mechanisms by which a gradual acquisition could occur. One way would be to linearly provide more ATOM liquidity against the STARS:ATOM pair on a Hub-based DEX. That said, there are certain technical milestones that might merit additional liquidity unlocking once the milestones are met. Fully eliminating the STARS token would trigger a taxable event for anyone based in a jurisdiction that is subject to capital gains. Pairing more liquidity against STARS gives STARS holders the ability to time the gain (loss) and offset it with losses (gains) Automation There may be parts of the deal that cannot be automated (e.g., auditor confirming that merged code is ready to go), but everything that can be automated should be automated to remove the operational hassle, avoid liability for the multisig…
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blockshane: Onchain data easily proves this. You can verify yourself or check Mintscan. @blockshane thanks for being responsive. Ok, so on-chain metrics from explorers like Mintscan can overstate or capture actions wholly unrelated to marketplace activity by counting behavior such as claiming staking rewards or voting in governance. If you insist on relying on what explorers say – we should get clarification from Mintscan on how they qualify an “active user” or “wallet” for your chain. That’s said, what the community, and any potential strategic partner needs is visibility into session-level user behavior and intent . This is critical to understanding actual and potential user retention, and monetization opportunities. Since you own and operate the frontend, you probably have a robust set of first-party user metrics. I recommend you focus on showcasing (for example): 1. User Behavior and Engagement • Active User Definitions (DAU/WAU/MAU) and Count • New vs. Returning Users • Session Duration • Pages per Session • Bounce Rate 2. Funnel and Conversion Metrics • Visit-to-Wallet connect rate: % of users who connect a wallet after visiting •…
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@blockshane keeps making excuses for 20,000 MAUs, it can be seen that it just wants to sell at a good price, which is not honest at all. The hub community is not stupid. There is no need to continue discussing the current proposal. The community refuses to pay for it.
As the creator of the PixYield project, specializing in yield-generating NFT collections actively integrated into community games and PLStaking raffles, I would like to express my sincere support for this proposal regarding Cosmos Hub’s acquisition of Stargaze. First, I want to highlight Stargaze’s excellence as an NFT platform. Its innovative and user-friendly tools have significantly facilitated the development and adoption of projects like mine. In my opinion, Stargaze is one of the best NFT platforms available, both in terms of product quality and the strength of its community. This proposal could offer a major opportunity to breathe new life into Stargaze while significantly strengthening the Cosmos ecosystem. Integrating Stargaze into the Hub has considerable potential for cross-chain growth and liquidity improvement—essential aspects for the sustainability and expansion of our respective NFT projects. However, for transparency and to ensure a smooth integration beneficial to all parties, here are a few points of attention I consider important: Technical Transition: The technical and operational migration must be carried out carefully to avoid any disruption for…
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Stargaze’s cultural and technical contributions to the Cosmos NFT ecosystem are undeniable. Collections like Bad Kids have demonstrated that Cosmos is not just a network for developers, but a vibrant, user-centric ecosystem.
However, the current proposal lacks realism. The ask of 3 million ATOM represents a significant premium over STARS current market value and offers no clear or tangible return for the Cosmos community.
From the perspective of STARS investors, this proposal feels less like a rescue and more like an abandonment. The community that has funded Stargaze and helped grow its collections should not have their losses overlooked. If a transition is to happen, it must be transparent, milestone-based, and mutually accountable.
In conclusion, I support the integration of Stargaze into the Cosmos Hub. But this should only proceed under a modest, market-aligned budget, with a clear transfer of core assets, and through a fair structure that does not erase STARS investors.
As an option, add vesting when exchanging STARS tokens for ATOM.
This way, you can avoid that when exchanging ATOM, you will go to the glass.
And in the same way, it will be clear who is truly committed to the Cosmos Hub.
The transaction price is too high. I think first you need to find a compromise in this, then think about the vesting time…
Very good, I’m fully on board with this. If we want things to be done right and actually gain people’s trust, it has to be fair and transparent. Getting a neutral third party involved for the assessment is really important. It’s not even that expensive, you are looking at something in the $30K to $150K range for a proper third-party assessment.
+1 that this is the list of activity metrics that matters, along with the definitions as it’s a much better indicator of “activity” that is relevant in the NFT sense.
The daily/weekly/monthly active users by Mintscan will indeed be based on staking, governance interactions etc. By all means, this type of activity figure can be part of the discussion. I would suggest going into a bit more detail though rather than the headline figure of 18k active wallets:
- Mintscan itself provides a trends graph for active accounts (the start and end date cannot be adjusted)
- It also provides an API for DAU/MAU, which can be used to demonstrate any wallet activity trends over time.
To be clear, I don’t mean any of this in either a negative or a positive sense. For example, contrasting the trends data from the pre-built charts or the API could, in fact, show Stargaze is stickier/better at retention than other Cosmos chains, thus helping back the figure up. (I haven’t done the analysis.) But if there’s an updated proposal created, contrasting stats for wallet activity - in addition to other activity - can help justify any future valuation targetted.
Do I understand correctly that a big chunk of the proposal is to go directly to Stargaze devs? If so, i would just fully blacklist this deal. Thats simply not good practise
This is not true, only a fraction of it. Most of the ask will go to Stars holders/stakers. ~90%.
This is not true. According to the cunning plan of the project representatives, quote “Redeem all circulating STARS [1] at the 200-day moving average price + customer acquisition cost (CAC) , with a clawback of unclaimed funds to STARS stakers.”. What needs to be highlighted in bold in this quote is not what they highlighted, but this: “with a clawback of unclaimed funds to STARS stakers”.
Now, I will go to my website to show you the staking structure of this chain.
From it you can see that about half of the total staking = is THEIR. Then you can calculate for yourself how much will end up in their pockets, given that more than half of the real holders will not make a claim.
I consider this proposal a scam. It can only be accepted due to corruption. And obviously, this is what they are counting on. Validators today earn not on commissions, but on kickbacks. If this proposal passes, it will create a precedent, and the ecosystem will be completely destroyed.
blockshane:The impact of it is far greater than 25% as it caused large validators to off-board, which not only caused a draw down in price, but also destroyed any remaining liquidity.
The first validator to drop out is number 21. The next ones are numbers 29 and 30. What large validators are you talking about? And I especially laughed about the 20k active accounts. You were dumping your token and unloading on the community for several years. After the token price went to the bottom and after there was no liquidity left, you come here to sell the staked STARS with premium.
NFT analytics is here.
Definitely great to see Stargaze and the Cosmos Hub want to “join forces” long-term. Honored to have @blockshane on this forum.
blockshane:The biggest issue with the token is the lack of liquidity.
blockshane:Stargaze can remove itself of the shackles paying for securing the chain, and direct profits to ATOM stakers.
Are you against opting in on what the Cosmos Hub directly offers? Security through ICS+, and if so, why? Versus what the current proposal is asking (understanding there is a new draft in the works).
Does this not attain both:
- security via liquidity
- reward both Stargaze and Cosmos Hub Validators/Stakers?
I’m sharing my opinion on this proposal a bit late because I wanted to see how things would evolve before weighing in. Personally, I see this proposal as a typical example of why governance reform is necessary. Even though I’m in favor of acquiring Stargaze, I believe the negotiation of terms shouldn’t be happening in this forum , because neither I nor most stakers and validators have the expertise to properly assess an acquisition. Unfortunately, the current governance system forced Shane to publish this buyout proposal directly on the forum , leaving it open to commentary from people who, like myself, are not qualified to speak on M&A numbers. In my view, Shane should have been directed to an elected assembly empowered to discuss acquisitions alongside a professional in mergers and acquisitions, as well as Hub representatives. Together, they could have refined the numbers based on feedback from both parties Stargaze and the Hub before submitting the proposal for a final governance vote. While I believe most people here support acquiring Stargaze, the terms are currently being renegotiated behind the scenes between Shane and Magmar before being resubmitted. I hope that in the…
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I don’t think ICS makes sense in a world where the Hub has permissionless smart contracts. I believe its being deprecated. As a team I’d love to 100% focus on product. Managing a token requires an entire team to work with liquidity provides, market makers, CEXs, etc. I’d rather delegate that to ATOM and focus on what we’re good at.
There’s a team allocation, and the revised one will as well. Are you suggesting devs build for free? The biggest chunk is distributed pretty evenly across stakers.
Thank you for your response, Shane. Looking forward to reading the revision.
Quentin:I believe the negotiation of terms shouldn’t be happening in this forum,
Is this the opposite of operating as pro open-source?
FHZ:Is this the opposite of operating as pro open-source?
I believe it’s important not to confuse open-sourcing code, community governance, and acquisition negotiations. An acquisition requires fair and balanced discussions between the involved parties. Trying to conduct such negotiations entirely in the open or through direct democracy is, in my view, not appropriate. However, I’m in favor of having an open and democratic debate on whether or not we should acquire Stargaze. But the negotiation of the terms should be handled by appointed representatives.
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