Hi @t_norm !
Pleasure to have you on the dYdX Governance Forum. I myself am a user of the Messari Governance Portal and the Messari Token Reports as I use these on a daily basis in my profession (by way of an introduction, I am a Senior Legal Analyst with a crypto-focused regulatory consultancy firm).
The community’s frustration with the Playbook is that it fails to provide the needed clarity and basically reflects publicly available information - information which is free of charge. I shall link a few documents which are free and provide 30x the value and information than what this Playbook provides: (https://a16z.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/principles-and-models-of-decentralization_miles-jennings_a16zcrypto.pdf), (https://variant.fund/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Sufficient-Decentralization-by-Marc-Boiron.docx.pdf), (Legal Framework for Non-U.S. Trusts in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). These few research papers and even a post published by the Foundation itself, provide a lot more clarity (again, free of charge), as to what should be done and ought to be done than the Playbook the community got charge $90,000 for. I emphasize, these are free of charge. With regard to Reverie’s compensation, they are not an advisory/consultancy firm but are merely Grants Operators (this sub-par Playbook is an evidence of that fact) - hence, further iterations should not be charged by them but should be outsourced to competent third parties in this regard (chosen by the Community). In addition, Reverie is already adequately incentivised in the Community’s opinion (actually in the Community’s opinion Reverie is over-incentivised - I urge you to look at the Grants Channel discussion starting 5 days ago which has led to various active contributors and endorsed delegates leaving). Let’s keep in mind Reverie gets paid $55,000 per month to run the DGP and another $15,000 to run the Operations Trust. I think $70,000 per month for one client (being dYdX) is very fair compensation (especially in light of the sub-par service the dYdX Community is receiving - again this can be confirmed by venturing to the Discord Chat - I implore you not to take my word for it).
With regard to your comments re. Optimism, in my personal opinion, comparing this Playbook to the two documents cited above (which I personally reviewed and am satisfied with their contents), is an insult to Optimism.
The same Messari Article you posted contains an image of the dYdX DAO with Operations and Grants at the top and bottom. Operations and Grants are both controlled by Reverie. Now, if that is decentralised in accordance with Messari’s metrics of decentralisation, then i’d have to disagree with this reasoning. This in and of itself shows a very high-level of centralisation within the Ecosystem due to the over-reliance and what the community has now deemed ‘hijacking’ of the Protocol (through lobbied VCs - which were confirmed by Larry - co-founder of Reverie - in a message he has since deleted) (Had it not been for this VC vote Reverie would be out of the DGP - hence, the community did not want them to proceed with the DGP - Derek Hsue’s previous employer - Blockchain Capital - was lobbied to vote in their favour with almost half of the dYdX supply - a fellow community member has been investigating this since the vote - you can find an explanation post here: (Reverie's Alleged DGP1.5 vote manipulation: A Recap - #2 by RealVovochka). I want to also point out that recently, @RealVovochka also uncovered that Reverie paid Chaos Labs an undisclosed amount of $300,000 11 Months ago (coincidentally coinciding with the Chaos Labs seed round - just an observation made by several members - in no way shape or form an allegation).
Again, if, in accordance with Messari’s standards this is deemed to be decentralised, then i’d have to express my disappointment in this regard. Having followed Ryan Selkis and conversed with him in the past, I am sure that this is not Messari’s standard of decentralisation (I stand to be corrected).
I’d also like to add that these same persons you are currently praising were advocating for dictatorship in DAOs (In this regard - I implore you to make reference to minute 5:48 of the following podcast where Larry advocates for Dictatorship models in DAOs (What Lessons DAOs Can Learn from Corporate Governance | Larry Sukernik, Derek Hsue - YouTube). The goal of DAOs (which is the north-star I aim towards when thinking, commenting and contributing to this Ecosystem) is to provide users with a pseudonym-environment where contribution is appreciated, incentivised (may not be financial), and curated. However, Larry (founder of Reverie) seems to think that one of the founding cornerstones of our industry (a cornerstone first introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto himself), is actually one to be disregarded.
My reply to this statement (it contains an additional paragraph so feel free to type in a keyword of the text in the search button to read further):
As a last point, I cannot help but notice that the article you cited re. dYdX is written by Ryan Holloway, who happens to be (or so I am told), the brother of Max Holloway (a person that received $307,000 in grants funding since the start of the DGP - with his latest update on the largest grant he received for $125,000 being “Nothing yet! We would just like to initiate a conversation proactively regarding the changes to dYdX’s incentives for dYdX V4.” (by the way - he’s been working on this since August and was, I reiterate, paid $125,000 to complete it. 8 Months later, and the community has zilch). Furthermore, apparently Messari was given a 130k Grant by Reverie (dYdX Grant: Messari Quarterly Reports)? I’m sorry, but based on these facts, I cannot take your comment here as being based on your own impartial and independent view of what’s currently going on.
I also forgot to add that the current operators of this Forum (Reverie), have proceeded to censor this same Forum by choosing what to transfer from our previous governance forum (Commonwealth). Amusingly, they seem to have forgotten to migrate the following discussion (Commonwealth), which provides substantial detail in regard to Reverie’s abuses, lack of transparency, accountability, lack of willingness to take on community feedback etc. Again, maybe this is an oversight from their end (which is improbable considering they migrated all previous discussions in the DGP section). Sidenote, these same people also have - embedded in the current Forum’s Terms of Use - baked in that they have the power to ban anyone at will without providing any reason whatsoever. Their argument that these Terms were the same on the Foundation-administered Commonwealth is invalid - as the dYdX Foundation is impartial and independent, whilst Reverie is not (the fact that they did not migrate posts criticising them is proof of this).
We appreciate you contributing to the discussion. As I stated I am a fan of Messari, yet I hope your comment does not reflect Ryan’s vision and/or perspective on decentralisation. Having followed him for a while now, I am pretty sure he would have a very very different opinion than the one you posted above in relation to what’s currently going on.
It was a pleasure conversing with you Traver - I look forward to seeing Messari grow.
Wishing you the best,
Immutable Lawyer
