I generally agree with and echo the sentiments of Andrea81.
I can understand Fernando’s concern about the opportunity cost of unused funds stagnating the overall development of the protocol. At the same time though, it is important that the governors of BAL’s treasury protect foremost the interest of the protocol and thus the interests of anyone with an exposure to BAL. I also acknowledge that 6666 BAL over 6 months is not a large ask as a percentage of current spending.
However, I think it is reasonable for governance to demand that any treasury spending should come with an expected protocol value increase greater than or equal to the spending. I do not think that FE DAO has demonstrated their value add is worth more than the 6666 BAL they are asking for.
Here are some key thoughts:
I agree that a proposal like this should have a measurable outcome, with accountability should the team fall behind expectations or exceed them. If the impact of this team’s contribution cannot be measured, how can compensation be reasonably determined?
As FE DAO was being compensated for their work so far, their achievements should be discounted relative to the compensation. E.g. if FE DAO generates $100,000 of value for the project, but were paid $200,000 for the work, that represents a net loss for BAL holders. As the details of this are behind closed doors I would omit them from the decision. Fernando has vouched repeatedly for FE DAO and some may accept this. Others would prefer the underlying details to make their own assessment.
It is unclear to me how paying for governance is not a complete meme. Balancer governance at the moment seems very detailed and high level, and the community is high quality. People engage here because they are genuinely interested by the project and it’s flexibility (FE DAO in contrast are paid actors). Paying for governance may increase participation, but the quality of these new participants would be questionable.
FE DAO is selling themselves here as Balancer Protocol Politicians. I’m not sure what this even means. I will say that, just like in the real world, people who aspire to be politicians are usually not the type of people that you should want to be representing you. Again I echo Andrea81’s sentiments here. I’m very distrustful of the efficacy and motives of politicians.
FE DAO proposes to improve Balancer’s Market Position & Narrative. I’m curious to hear what FE DAO believes our narrative (and the protocol’s ultimate purpose) is. This was debated recently and it would be good to check that FE DAO is on the same page.
In light of all this, I can see cases where FE DAO could add value. This would be mostly marketing and using their connections with other protocols to onboard liquidity. Getting more bootstrapping liquidity pools would be amazing.
Balancer should spend money on this sort of thing, but I think we should wait to strike when we can get the most value out of our marketing. At the bare minimum, we need to have a concrete product and value proposition. Ideally, we would wait for a catalyst that the marketing can be timed around. For example, a lot of the tradeoff downside for balancer’s complexity is higher gas fees. When ETH solves these, a strong marketing campaign may be able to draw significant liquidity from the current market leaders.
On a side note: Paying 145,000 BAL/week for LPs is also pretty questionable but that’s a different conversation.
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This is not relevant to the above but in context I did find this quote amusing when researching: