Proposal (Draft) Terminate AADAO Mandate and operations within 60 days
Proposal to Terminate AADAO Mandate and Operations Within 60 Days Summary : This proposal suggests we officially wind down AADAO operations within 60 days. For the past 8 months, AADAO has been running in prolonged “maintenance mode” without a clear plan to conclude its mandate, and “maintenance” is still costing the community around $19K–$22K a month. The idea here is to wrap things up efficiently, cancel any leftover obligations after August 31, 2025, and hand off all remaining investment agreements to ICL to follow through where appropriate. Why This Matters : Since November 2024, AADAO hasn’t shared a clear plan or timeline for shutting things down. Despite being in so-called “maintenance mode,” it’s still operating with a sizable monthly budget and four contributors working at 40% FTE. Additionally, paid core contributore have publicly criticized ATOM’s future while actively promoting other coins and projects. The last batch of grants (10 in total) was approved back in December 2024. All those teams have had time to deliver, and we’re proposing a final deadline of August 31, 2025. If any of them don’t meet that deadline, their grant would be cancelled, and unused…
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I support this personally. It seems there is no clear end set. Setting a date and wrapping up loose ends is imperative for the community and the cosmos. Right now it seems they are just sitting back and collecting for no reason. It may be they are actually doing some work, but without proper updates as to how progress is going, it seems they are just taking from the CP.
How many grantees are still working on grants? And how many are on track.
Helpful to understand the scale of:
Cancel any incomplete grants after that deadline, with unused balance from the second mandate returning to the community pool no later than 70 days after proposal passes.
And then I guess the question is what value would be risked now. Would be shame to miss out of something good or fail to support a project that is delivering what it was approved for. On the other hand if there is nothing significant left…
Keep in mind there’s also @0xjordy - venture lead.
Last investment was made in December 24. Why is he still collecting a monthly salary? Jordan, please elaborate what you do for your 40% FTE, monthly hours. Can also share slack activity (message with only a smiley doesn’t count,
) so the community gets ab idea of what’s going on.
According to Clickup, all grants from the 2023 mandate period are closed out. There are 21 grants from the 2024 mandate period that are still in progress.
Note: Spelldrop grant not to be confused w Spell Wallet grant (which was discontinued).
~40% of the active grants are Hydro ecosystem related.
For more information on Q4 2024, please refer to TR 9.
Incidentally, I asked AADAO about their draw-down plan last week.
They indicated that their focus will shift to finalizing the plan after the publication of their end-of-Q2 blog update. That post is expected to include revised contributor FTE allocations (with some contributors moving below 40% FTE) as well as progress updates on active grants. ETA: next week? (@CuriousJ @0xjordy)
Separately, regarding the ventures function, I’ve requested that the team schedule a call with the BVI trustee (with Oversight participating) to assess which responsibilities can be transitioned immediately/imminently.
Please note, I’m going to be offline for 3 days. I’ll check the forum upon return. If you have a specific question for Oversight, please @ me so I don’t miss them. Thanks
I shared the following in the $ATOM Community Chat (tg) earlier today, adding here for cover and visibility. RE: Transfer of Assets and Agreements • The Guernsey trust functions solely as a custodian of Cosmos Hub assets; while it holds legal title, it exercises no discretionary investment authority. Upon receipt of a valid and sufficiently specific instruction from the principal, Cosmos Hub governance , the Trustee should be able to transfer the subject assets and any related investment agreements to a sufficiently shielded entity representing the Cosmos Hub. Please note, there are no assets held by the Trustee at this juncture. • Should an on-chain proposal be submitted, its operative clauses should be drafted in terms acceptable to the Trustee of record, Lemma Ltd. Ideally, we would want the passage of the proposal to constitute “effective instruction” for purposes of the trust deed and automatically trigger the migration event. To ensure this, I ask the community to work w me and Lemma to draft appropriate language if y’all wanna pursue this. • Reached out to Lemma Ltd to discuss the above. Update RE AADAO FTE & Active Roster • Presently, four contributors…
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Not surprised about ‚lack of engagement and ownership of issues‘.
Cutting your own salary from 40% to 20% either means: you will work even less than before which allows you do be even less productive.
- Or they admit they worked too little the past 6 months for 40%? So they wanna do what’s ‚right‘ and cut it to 20% so it’s justified to work that little?
Note that this all happened after this thread was posted.
Shut this thing down already
I agree to retain 1 person until the cease of operations. There is no need for for a ventures and grant lead when there is no new ones going to happen, there is no need for an op associate if there is no longer operations. There is only need for one person to handle shutting this all down
AADAO did mention to me 3 weeks ago one contributor may be leaving the roster.
This Monday, they informed me their progressive maintenance plan is to reduce 4 people to lesser hrs.
op associate if there is no longer operations
The ops associate is actually essential to coredao and oversight. Ending ops makes ops associate more relevant as counterintuitive as that may sound. There’s a lot of administrative documentation and stakeholder communication behind the scenes. She does work her 40% FTE hrs and has been consistently responsive to oversight needs throughout maintenance.
I recommend a pared down team consisting of:
- one grant reviewer, 40% FTE
- ops associate , 40% FTE
- comms contractor ($500 - $600 pm)
- elected oversight member, 20-35% FTE
- financial controller, 20-35% FTE
That is a temporary solution that solves some of the issue short term, but the other part of this discussion is a time line until sunset. How long do they plan to run on “maintenance” mode? They could technically stay on for years in this form.
I do think it’s helpful to have a hard deadline, and the community can formalize the directive via governance.
But it must also be done responsibly. Please read this.
I think that makes sense, with the caveat that maybe not all ongoing grants can actually wrap up their projects within 60 days, or it was planned to finalize them at a later date and the teams cannot practically make it happen sooner.
Cancelling these grants remains an option but that basically means losing the funds already disbursed.
At the very least trimming the team down is relevant under the circumstances.
I do not see a need to cancel them. I do not think it right to punish the teams building who are relying on the grants. It is possible though to turn over control of the grants to ICL maybe or the oversight committee.
I have read. The community needs to work together then to create a prop for governance that covers all these issues. If there are roles that are not needed, they should remove them in the mean time. I do not know all the inter workings of AADAO and who is all needed moving forward until they are officially closed down, but i cannot see why they need 4 people on payroll when there are not any new grants or ventures happening. As you stated above it does sound like they intend to do that some but still to me there is no need for more than 2 people on payroll.
Yes, good points.
It would indeed be unfair to the recipients who have nothing to do with this
Very much so, it would not be a good look to abandon and punish the teams trying to bring value to cosmos
Right, but they shouldn’t rely on contributors not getting their shit together to shut it down (present a plan) - having endless time to deliver what they were paid for.
True as well… so if I’m getting this right, there is no simple solution to this complex problem ![]()
I guess each project will need to be assessed independently and a decision taken by the remaining AADAO staff or Oversight.
Probably a bit early to start thinking about this however. Let’s see first if Grace’s proposal gets enough traction.
This is my proposal, believe it or not
(debut yay)
Open Grants At present, there are the 16 “in progress grants”. I’ll ask the grant reviewers to provide, for each grantee, an estimate of the time needed for each grantee to complete their obligation. The Zellic engagement spans 18 months and involves audits of the Cosmos stack; can be transferred to ICL immediately, and also makes more sense for ICF/L to own this relationship. DoraHacks has produced minimal value relative to its sizable cost and should be discontinued imo. Cosmos Hub - Accelerate Brazil - Payments and milestones pending, expected to be complete by June 30, 2025 Cosmos Hub Testnet Incentive Program (renewal) – 2025 H1 - Payment is complete with the final milestone expected to be complete by July 31, 2025 Votion: The Hydro Vote Aggregator - Payment pending as the final milestone is expected to be completed by July 31, 2025 ATOM Interchain Insights: Comprehensive TVL & Flow Analytics for ATOM - Payments and milestones pending, expected to be complete by September 30, 2025 CosmWasm Development and Maintenance 2025 - Payments and milestones pending, expected to be complete by September 30, 2025 Archive Node for the Cosmos Hub - Payments and…
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Thank you for this necessary proposal, @StunZeed. Congratulations on this debut as well. Agree with a set date to wrap things up, however:
No – Let AADAO contributors decide the timeline for winding things down.
turn over control of the grants to ICL maybe or the oversight committee.
With how the recent prop 993 was handled by an ICL representative/Neutron Joint Committee, why would we want to transfer funds over to that team? There has been no update RE returning the committed ATOM vs. DROP’s liquid staked ATOM.
the Neutron Foundation has committed to return 50,000 ATOM received as part of [Proposal 72]([PROPOSAL #72][ACCEPTED] Bringing Liquid Staking and DeFi to the Cosmos Hub with Interchain Security)
CosmosNanny, AADAO Oversight Committee, seems to be the better candidate RE handling remaining investment agreements.
AADOA oversight is a good choice. I merely was throwing suggestions on who could take over the remaining grants. Whether it be ICL, oversight, or another entity, I feel it important to have a plan for sunset
In light of the current context, we would like to share the following recommendations, which we believe are aligned with the DAO’s present needs. • Termination of Redundant Roles Several DAO member positions should be concluded as soon as possible, given that the grant program is no longer accepting new applications. With most active grants nearing completion or being cancelled, the workload for reviewers has also diminished significantly. • Delegation of Hydro-Related Grant Oversight For grants tied to Hydro side products, we recommend delegating the evaluation and monitoring responsibilities to the Hydro Team itself, which is well-equipped to assess progress and outcomes. This transition could reduce unnecessary overhead and potentially justify retaining only a single reviewer to oversee a small number of remaining grants—such as those involving DoraHacks, Passage, or Pryzm—strictly to determine whether they merit continued support or should be discontinued. • Termination of Remaining Grants For all other “in progress” grants that fall outside the previous scope, we suggest termination in order close out the program efficiently. • Security Audits Transition With…
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CosmosNanny, AADAO Oversight Committee, seems to be the better candidate RE handling remaining investment agreements.
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Current Arrangement: In the event of maintenance termination, the executed investment agreements will be overseen by the BVI trustee, Lemma Ltd. The firm is fully funded through year-end 2025.
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Extension Option: Should the community wish to maintain this structure, Lemma can continue for an additional two-year term at $6,000 pa. The trustee’s remit is largely passive, monitoring contracts until each investment reaches maturity.
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Organisational Efficiency: Given the limited workload, I’ve been asking the team re the necessity of having a dedicated Ventures Lead. I have a call scheduled with Lemma tomorrow to confirm whether any critical functions would remain uncovered if that role were to be phased out sooner than later.
Govmos: Delegation of Hydro-Related Grant Oversight For grants tied to Hydro side products, we recommend delegating the evaluation and monitoring responsibilities to the Hydro Team itself, which is well-equipped to assess progress and outcomes. I disagree for several reasons: #1 . COI : Hydro would be judging its own performance while using cp funds. Independent verification is a basic tenet when public funds are used. We shouldn’t waive this requirement merely for perceived tradeoffs in convenience. We don’t trust. We verify. #2 . Accountability & Risk Mgmt : External review disciplines schedules and deliverables. Self-assessment effectively eliminates the control function, heightening exposure to delivery slippage, and scope drift. Community has little recourse for correction once all funds are released. #3 . Size : High-cost engagements demand proportionally stronger eval and oversight. $417,882 was allocated to Hydro-related initiatives in Q4 2024, representing 23% of grant outlays for that period. #4 . Fairness : Allowing a single grantee to judge its own milestones is bad practice. Efficiency gains can’t come at the expense of fairness and objectivity.…
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For all other pending grants that fall outside the previous scope, we suggest termination in order close out the program efficiently.
There are no “pending” grants. All grants were approved by end of Dec 2024. There are approx 16 that are “in progress”.
The Problem Even with an assigned sunset date via gov, a satisfactory and responsible draw-down is unlikely under the “maintenance” situation. The absence of leadership w urgency and responsibility to prioritise and execute close-out actions is challenging. Recommendation Community should grant explicit authority (via this proposal) for the Oversight Committee members (Financial Controller and myself) to manage the wind-down end-to-end. Giving us the remit closes the leadership gap and makes a theoretical target sunset date viable. I suggest September 30, 2025 as the hard stop date, with a commitment to close earlier if feasible. Scope of Delegated Authority for Oversight • Right-size roster resources immediately : Elminate non-essential roles and operating costs. Imo, we can shut down w op associate and one grant reviewer at 40% FTE. • Grant completion/closure : Discontinue grants where necessary, and transfer grant administration (e.g., Zellic audits, CosmWasm maintenance, Archive Node for CH) to ICL where appropriate. • Finalize administrative arrangements for investment agreements : Preserve and extend supervision structure w BVI trustee OR transfer…
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I fully agree and strongly support Grace’s suggestion here. This is the only path given so far that I see as reasonable and effective.
To do this correctly, Grace should be given full authority to gracefully shut down the DAO and manage the hand off of the assets to whatever comes next.
Let’s get this over with as fast as possible, and onto a new chapter.
CosmosNanny, AADAO Oversight Committee, seems to be the better candidate RE handling remaining investment agreements.
Thanks for your confidence. But I can’t do it. AADAO is a Guernsey Non-Charitable Purpose Trust (NSPT). While a popular legal entity choice for DAOs, it’s not ideal bc the liability shield is weak. Guernsey NSPT only provides liability cover to the trustee, and even that cover is limited to trust assets.
None of the contributors are protected. While I’m not a core contributor – if governance assigns supervision of agreements to me, I become a contributor. And I can’t take on that kind of risk.
It’s best to keep assignment w BVI trustee (and extend engagement through 2027 for $12k) or transfer the agreements to qualified and shielded entity.
It seems there is some disagreement on who will be the “handler” of the sunsetting. Would it be feasible for the community on here to elect an individual or entity to handle this matter? Or is better to just try and hand over all of this to ICL?
Giving us the remit closes the leadership gap and makes a theoretical target sunset date viable. I suggest September 30, 2025 as the hard stop date, with a commitment to close earlier if feasible.
We had initially anticipated a much longer wind-down process, but if September 30, 2025, is now being considered as a firm sunset date, we fully support this proposed path forward.
If the DAO’s operations can indeed be concluded by then in a structured and responsible manner, it would render our earlier proposition less essential than we previously believed.
Our primary concern remains the same: that this program be brought to a close as swiftly and cleanly as possible.
Cosmos_Nanny: Informal’s track record w self-certified/self-satisfied progress reports with limited evidentiary support (Prop #839 ) underscores the need for third-party eval rather than reduced scrutiny. Please name teams with a stronger reporting track record than Informal & Hydro. The Informal Hub team was publishing painfully detailed quarterly reports (including budget, headcount and everything else) and organizing multiple community calls monthly. The Hydro team already provides: • Similar quarterly forum reports • Weekly product updates in our Telegram channel • Weekly growth updates to the ICL • Automated reporting via our /metrics page On conflicts of interest: you are remunerated using AADAO funds, which creates a direct incentive to preserve its existence. Since you apparently agree with @StunZeed that AADAO should wind down, why did it fall to a community member to initiate that conversation? On transparency: can you share how much you’ve been paid since joining and what measurable outcomes you’ve delivered for the Hub? From our end, we’ve asked for your help in reclaiming the Prop 800 deployment still under AADAO signatory control, and…
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We’d support this plan as well.
– I do think however that Informal could reliably manage the Hydro related grants.
Testing 1,2,3…testing for my first post on the forum… Kudos to @StunZeed for authoring the Proposal. For the Recommendation on and orderly wind-down: Thanks for putting forward something which appears to be a realistic way forward. Oversight needs to be granted a clear mandate to lead the wind-down and this is the right call imo, especially if there is a Sept. 2025 sunsetting target. Dragging things out indefinitely causes uncertainty and frustrations. One area that probably will require clarity on the way forward is how active grants will be handled. Thinking about those teams where they are in the mid-deliverable phase but are on track or have met KPIs. While some transitions to ICL are mentioned, it will be good to understand how decisions will be made across the broader grant portfolio. If these teams are given a clear transition to whatever applies to them would maintain trust in the wind down process, especially if contributors have been delivering in good faith. Once this gets the go-ahead, an Orderly Closure Process Roadmap would not go amiss. This can be a live modular document that can be updated as things progress. Maybe it should include steps for reviewing…
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Thyborg: Please name teams with a stronger reporting track record than Informal & Hydro. The Informal Hub team was publishing painfully detailed quarterly reports (including budget, headcount and everything else) and organizing multiple community calls monthly. The Hydro team already provides: • Similar quarterly forum reports • Weekly product updates in our Telegram channel • Weekly growth updates to the ICL • Automated reporting via our /metrics page Let’s say all this is true - you’re not really replying to any of the four points that totally make sense. Or are you vouching for grantees getting to decide for themselves if they’re doing a good job or not? You just don’t get to check yourself and decide for yourself if you‘re doing good or not - especially when you were given community pool funds. Thyborg: On conflicts of interest: you are remunerated using AADAO funds, which creates a direct incentive to preserve its existence. Since you apparently agree with @StunZeed that AADAO should wind down, why did it fall to a community member to initiate that conversation? ??? LOL Are you shocked that someone working in Cosmos is being honest…
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Thyborg: conflicts of interest: you are remunerated using AADAO funds, which creates a direct incentive to preserve its existence. Unclear on what you’re implying here. Conflicts of interest exists when private gain trumps duty. And yes, I’m in support of a motion to end a source of “paycheck” with velocity and transparency bc it’s the right thing to do. That’s weird? Suffice it to say, your incorrect application and definition of “conflict” above, is both strange and well, revealing. Thyborg: Since you apparently agree with @StunZeed that AADAO should wind down, why did it fall to a community member to initiate that conversation? I’ve been privately and publicly asking for a clear plan since Nov 2024: define what “sunset” actually means and spell out the execution plan. Transparency Report #9 (April) laid out why we need a wind-down plan and how it must be communicated. Core contributors kept promising they’d “get to it,” month after month. I warned them they needed to get ahead of growing frustration before it gets ripe. Well, it got ripe, and now there a post. Also unclear why it’s an issue if the conversation is further advanced by community.…
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Thyborg: From our end, we’ve asked for your help in reclaiming the Prop 800 deployment still under AADAO signatory control, and received no response. I share your frustration wrt to this issue. But your claim that you “received no response” is untrue. Since being added to the TG chat on the matter on 8 May, I’ve shared 26 messages there and fired off 67 internal Slack messages to untangle this mess. Here’s the hard block: • Sequence of custody In order for a decision on disposition of funds to have capacity, AADAO must first re-establish custody under its own 4-of-7 msig, the only wallet authorized to act via gov. At present the tokens sit outside that msig. Worse, every signer has since left the DAO, and the msig membership was not updated although Oversight advised last fall that the signing roster must be composed of active contributors only. • Current location of funds https://neutron.celat.one/neutron-1/contracts/neutron1l7ny0rckx9rks2p2aq94wd74sehjczym6n9y4yax8lcy9s39uans4uga62 According to AADAO financial records, this is a single user wallet owned/operated by former contributor Xave Meegan. The deployments to Stride and Astroport were made…
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Do you understand that the Hydro-related grants are not for the Hydro team? They were allocated by the AADAO to separate teams (Zephyrus, Votion, Immunefi & Margined) who are building products tied to the Hub’s PoL effort. No one is claiming they should self-assess their own performance. Govmos proposed that the Hydro team handle supervision, and I’ve noted that if Grace takes that role, her bias against Hydro should not compromise teams that are meeting their obligations.
I appreciate that you put the proposal forward (yes vote for me), and I’m not at all surprised Grace supports it - that’s a bare minimum. What’s notable is that she waited for you to take action, despite the issues being the same for the past 6-8 months, likely ever since their Strategic Committee resigned. Grace is very vocal about potential conflicts of interest, yet in this case, she had a direct incentive not to advocate for a prompt wind-down, since her remuneration as part of Oversight depends on the DAO’s continued existence. Do you not see that at all?
You have not answered my questions, which were:
- how much have you received in total since joining as Oversight?
- what have you accomplished since joining as Oversight?
The Informal team did not support your candidacy. What exactly is unsportsmanlike about that?
Also Hydro is now separate from Informal and @pofftermatt (who leads the technical lead) and myself have already resigned. But even if you personally resent our involvement with Informal, that cannot justify biased decision-making in your oversight role at the AADAO.
We’ve requested your help precisely because we cannot get hold of the multi-sig members. You mentioned a month ago that you would circle back, but you haven’t done that. How do you suggest we move forward?
1.) she exposed and reported crystal clear misconduct and grift by GM, which resulted into core contributors removing him for the Dao - proving that the report was necessary.
She’s been responsive to every community member who reached out to here.
She discontinued a Grant before she was elected.
Made sure contributors don’t overpay because compensation tiers were established in the renewal proposal.
2.) the amount she made is important, because? The amount of money that was saved by removing Youssef (contributors had no choice but removing him be abuse everyone saw she’s right) probably makes up for the little she made
and again, the numbers are in all the reports. It’s recommendable to read them, especially when given grants.
3.) inform initially voted NWV, even though instructions for voting during this special and first time election were clear: informal changed their vote after they were told they’re violating the rules during this election.
Brian agreed with me when I asked him about Informals vote.
How’s that not unsportsmanlike?
1- What did she do in the past 6-8 months specifically?
2- It’s not that important. I’m mostly interested in pointing out the double-standard.
3- I don’t remember Informal voting NWV on the AADAO elections. If that happened, please show me the transaction. Informal voted NWV on the Legal Defense Fund after she got sued by Jae. You think that’s wrong?
4- Is it appropriate for her to bring personal grievances against Informal or Hydro into her responsibilities at the AADAO?
• currently she’s helping to do the job that would have been core contributors job. Please learn about the different areas of responsibility. • just Provided info about the current status of all remaining grants in the thread. • what double standard? Are you saying it would have been her job to propose this proposal months ago? If you talk about double standards, ask yourself why you’re not asking core contributors who have been asked by her for months to present such plan, why they haven’t done so months ago. Why aren’t you asking @0xjordy what his job is, and how much (more than grace) he’s making in this moment, without giving a single sign of being alive to the community - for months. Ask why Joni comes along with an aggressive reaction towards my proposal, saying that this is a Revanche act while you, Govmos, mag, highstakes and more people are here agreeing with the proposal. I know for a fact that the amount she’s being paid for this job + the amount of unpaid extra hours are way below what she usually makes. Saying it’s malicious that only now she openly says that she agrees with this proposal and that she would have loved this to go on forever is not only…
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I care about impactful grants being cancelled because Grace holds personal grievances against Informal. And I would like Hydro to be judged on its own merits going forward.
As for the four points, the Hydro team wouldn’t be evaluating itself, it would be overseeing grants awarded to independent teams.
That said, if Grace can take the role with objectivity, I’d prefer she handles it and save us the time. And her own performance over the past 6-8 months is relevant in this context.
Hey, I believe in efficient, direct communication. You should’ve expressed this as your concern outright.
Should some version of this proposal pass with a mandate for oversight to drive closure of ops,
I see no cause to discontinue any of the “in progress” grants, with the possible exception of QF (Dorahacks). Rather than discontinuing support for quadratic funding, it might be more productive to revise the engagement to focus on hackathons instead, if possible. These are just preliminary thoughts though.
AADAO’s milestone assessments are uneven this maintenance cycle, esp when review involves other teams (eg Mesh Security grant w OGP). The Hydro eco grants total roughly $417k, so the review process should be thorough. I won’t shove any grantees into a premature timeline, and also feel it would be irresponsible to lean exclusively on your team’s eval of Hydro related deliverables.
I want to work productively with you, but in order for us to do that, you must communicate constructively. Plainly state your concerns/questions rather than engaging me w passive-aggressive barbs. Deal?
care about impactful grants being cancelled because Grace holds personal grievances against Informal.
Bro, my personal opinions about any individual, team, or product don’t influence my decisions or actions. If they did, I’d have vetoed 90% of grants approved. That’s not the oversight job. Wrt grants, I strictly recommend termination only when there’s reliable, verified, objective, documented evidence of incompetence, misconduct, fraud, deceit, or an unachievable scope.
I have not engaged in passive-aggressive barbs, I responded to your comment characterizing Informal’s reports as “self-satisfied,” which you appeared to use as a basis to question our capacity to deal with the grants.
But I’m indeed ready to engage more productively. We have shared our assessments of the different “Hydro-related grants” with Joni, and I think that would be a good starting point.
Update Ventures Two questions to resolve • AADAO Trustee, Lemma Ltd. : custodian of investment agreements, can this role be transferred? • “Protocol support” : investor outreach and ecosystem support now handled by the Ventures Lead/Jordan, can this role be transferred? Discussion w AADAO Trustee, Lemma Ltd ( re the above ) • 20 Jun: call held with Lemma, joined by Joni (Grants), Jordan (Ventures) and Delisse (Ops). • Novating the agreements to transfer trustee responsibilities to the ICL is possible, but can be prohibitively expensive plus significant coordination time. Requires substantial legal spend from AADAO and ICL. • Trustee and AADAO Oversight Member Recommendation : keep Lemma in place. Fees are already covered through end of 2026 and renewable at $6,000/yr for 2027–2028 (total: $12,000 ). Hand-off Ventures Protocol Support to ICL • Lemma can agree to transfer of Jordan’s ventures related “protocol-support” duties to ICL once it receives a formal and successful Cosmos Hub governance directive confirming ICL as the qualified successor for venture lead’s support responsibilities. For their own diligence and records, the Trustee asked Jordan to…
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Regarding the above, am going to have a call w AADAO contributors forthcoming Tuesday to see how much of the recommended plan can be achieved without an on chain proposal.
At minimum, we will need governance to direct:
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shuttering of AADAO (the Dao was made through governance, and must be terminated via governance)
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Lemma to transfer venture support services to ICL
AADAO Drawdown Plan 1. Current Alignment All key stakeholders: AADAO contributors, AADAO Oversight, and Interchain Labs (ICL) are aligned. A formal governance mandate for an immediate draw-down plan with a hard sunset date is not required at this time. The following mutually agreed upon plan preserves organizational memory, redirects supervision to the appropriate parties, and positions the DAO for an orderly and definite “sunset”, without unnecessary governance overhead. 2. Grants Transferred to ICL (direct supervision) | Supervised by AADAO Oversight (with ICL support) | • Token Terminal • Zellic • Cosmos Hub Archive Node • ATOM Community Activation (Istanbul) | • Superbolt • Pryzm • Passage • Hydro-related grants: Zephyrus, Margined Protocol, Immunefi, Votion | 3. Ventures • Trustee extension • Extend Lemma Ltd ’s trustee role from FY-2026 to FY-2028 . • Additional cost: US $12k (awaiting revised agreement). • Operational shift • Jordan Andrews’ venture-support responsibilities will migrate to ICL . 4. Core-Team Reductions Name / Role | End Date | Mark Denker, Grants Lead…
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Thank you so much Grace.
This is great! This is exactly what we need
Sounds great. Thank you Grace!
@Better_Future : I’ve resorted to prompting you on the forum bc my DMs via Signal, Telegram, and X are still unanswered. If your contact information has changed, please lmk asap. There are 3 urgent matters requiring your immediate attention : 1. Slack Workspace Transfer: Renew and transfer ownership of the AADAO Slack workspace to me and @0xMagmar . Critical historical information necessary for ongoing grant and venture oversight is currently inaccessible. We agreed last Dec on the importance of preserving data and comms to ensure responsible continuity. 2. 450,000 ATOM LP Confirm your multisig public key and sign tx to initiate unwind of the 450,000 ATOM LP position on Astroport. These community funds must be returned to the Hub per CH prop 800. 3. AADAO Trust Governance (Enforcer Clarification) The Trustee (Lemma) and I need clarity on the current Enforcer of the Guernsey Trust. Are you still the Enforcer? If not, who is it? There appears to be misalignment bw the Internal Protocols and the Trust Deed regarding the definition of the Strategy Committee and its role as Enforcer. Lemma, has indicated that no Enforcer is currently in place. We need the identity and…
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FYI
Updates from Oversight re details of AADAO wind down will be provided here



