PGM-45: Mithras Labs Q1-24 Budget Request

Paladin Governance Management (PGM) PGM - Approved
1

Summary: Disburse the equivalent of 100,000 USDC over Q1-24 to finance the development of Paladin

Context:
Mithras Labs has been developing the Paladin Ecosystem (Paladin Lending, Boost / Pledge / Quest v1/v2 and Warlord) for close to 34 months and has supported the growth of the DAO namely by lending it 110 ETH in order to hold more liquidity.

As the protocol grows, and as Mithras Labs gets to the end of its raised funds, it is necessary that the DAO progressively is able to finance its development, namely by funding its main service provider: Mithras Labs.

The DAO has progressively started financing its development in PGM-41, where 20 ETH were disbursed for Q4-23. These funds enabled Mithras to deploy Quest v2, cross chain Quest as well as several features that are in the works.

Rationale:
This proposal is a continuation of the proposal of the past quarter, this time target for full operation financing by february. The actual amount in ETH is irrelevant as the devCo handles its operations in stablecoins, but we understand that it is better for Paladin to use these funding requests as a way to also reduce its debt.

Q1-2024 will be a “slower quarter” as we will focus on releasing the new tokenomics and stabilizing Quest v2 while going back to R&D for the next big product of the Paladin ecosystem (which will have its own proposal before going into production).

These requested funds will be used for development costs (ie: dev wage). Considering the DAO can afford them, but not much else, we have consistently cut down our expenses (down by 75% in 12 months, and 24% since the last proposal). As a measure transparency, here is Mithras’ current level of expenses:

You can confirm that these expenses for 7 people are in line with a European tech company and roughly 6x under the available data on competitors. There was also a slight unexpected raise in operational costs because of Ethereum activity raising the price of gas.

We’re requesting 100,000 USDC (45 ETH at current price), considering the DAO currently only has 30,000 USDC & ETH available in a liquid fashion, it would be unreasonable to ask for it in one go. Instead we’re requisition:

  • 20,000 USDC / or ETH equivalent by 20/01
  • 40,000 USDC / or ETH equivalent by 20/02
  • 40,000 USDC / or ETH equivalent by 20/03

Means:

  • 100,000 USDC

Voting options:
For / Against / Abstain

  • For
  • Against
  • Abstain
0 voters
2 Likes
2

The proposal makes sense to me. I just noticed I minor typo : I assume that the last requested amount is on march not february.

2 Likes
3

On my side, I find this proposal making completely sense and the amounts asked very reasonable compared to the standard of the market. Will vote for !

1 Like
4

Thanks for this proposal, I will support sending ETH so this also reduce the DAO liabilities.

The committee started to convert fees for ETH in anticipation of this proposal, and aims to use the yCRV to reduce its debts as well (another proposal should be posted about this)

At the moment, the treasury has 7 ETH worth 32K$ so January payment is ready if needed earlier. It should be fine for next months too but hard to anticipate, especially with Mimo deadline also coming in March.

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This is the USDC and ETH state of treasury as of 01/12

image
image1236Ă—150 9.49 KB

There is indeed enough to cover January, and I’m pretty sure there will be enough to cover the months afterwards. Especially considering that the assets used as Collateral on the Mimo MS shouls be more than enough to cover for paying back the 180,000 USDC from the loan (~500k in there, so 3x the debt).

As a reminder, I’m still not sure denominating the service provider bills is smart since operations are paid in fiat, and we cannot afford to have volatility on funds to cover for fixed bills.

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Totally agree with this proposal and indeed having stables to cover Mithras operations would be better.

I just have one little question: Wouldn’t it be better to convert the intended USDC / ETH directly in a EUR stablecoin as all of the costs are based in Europe ?

2 Likes
7

There is also 1 ETH on Arbitrum.

On the 491K$ on this msig, 326K is POL so it won’t be spent, 10K is DAI but used to pay loan interests until deadline, so that leaves 12 ETH & 224k yCRV worth 153K$ (so not enough atm).

Moreover, in case the yCRV position covers 180k in March or before, the 12 ETH should also be used to reduce Mithras loan imo.

Understandable but it was discussed earlier iirc. Considering the market state, it’s dangerous for the DAO to have a loan denominated in ETH as will most likely increase. On this side the volatility risk is lower for Mithras, but maybe closer transfer could help reduce it even more (for exemple every 15 days ?).

However I fully agree that as soon as this loan volatility is neutralized for the DAO, SPs should be paid in stables (might indeed make sense to accumulate EUR stables).

To be clear, it doesn’t need the DAO to fully repay for this to happen, but we’d at least need to acquire the remaining loan amount without impacting POL (90 ETH atm) which can be use to earn some yield in the meantime to repay it progressively & then switch to stables payments.

1 Like
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Imo monthly is fine, we do need to limit signing needs. Let’s rediscuss this in march when the loan is closed, things should have moved significantly in the meantime

PS: will push the vote on Monday 1st of Jan so delegates have some time post holiday to ponder on the topic if needed

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https://signal.paladin.vote/#/proposal/0xe3edbbcbb5d9e17ab71b7cd13a1c51650de682146d9b5bf506174bca5f07add5

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Seems like the quorum was of 735,000 hPAL and wasn’t reached, repushed the vote: Snapshot

Ofc, not participating in the first vote will count for the delegate rewards.

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Thought I already voted & didn’t double check, my bad.
Obviously supporting this PGM as mentioned in the previous comments, sorry for the need to repost.

Quorum PGM-45: 732 717 votes

image

  1. According to PGM 33 & 40, delegation rewards were requiring 80% participation minimum, so it shouldn’t be updated based on this vote only.

  2. As last delegate program ended in December, rewards for January would require a renewal, meaning there are curently none. The proposal is not posted yet (didn’t had the time to do it this week)

  3. Its worth saying that no reminder was made about quorum unreached, unlike on most proposals missing votes.

Anyway, I just voted but ofc communication would have prevented this revote, no need for threats…

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I mean it will count in the total % at the end of the month

Someone is working on it internally too on our end, we don’t intend to suddenly stop the program.