PGM-51: Mithras Labs Q2-24 Budget Request

[Figue]

Summary: Disburse the equivalent of 120,000 EUR over Q2-24 to progressively pay back the loan made by Mithras Labs. The funds will solely finance the maintenance and development of Paladin.

Context:
Mithras Labs has been developing the Paladin Ecosystem (Paladin Lending, Boost / Pledge / Quest v1/v2 and Warlord) for close to 38 months and has supported the growth of the DAO namely by lending it 110 ETH in order to hold more liquidity.

With PGM-XX Mithras Labs loaned 110 ETH to Paladin, the previous 4 installments have contributed in reducing this debt accepted in PGM-XX and PGM-XX. Here is a recap of the debt payout.

We will keep soliciting funds at a rate the DAO can afford until the loan is fully repaid.

Rationale:
This proposal is a continuation of the proposal of the past quarter, with targets enabling Mithras to entirely run on these amounts over the quarter. The actual amount in ETH is irrelevant as the devCo handles its operations in euros, but we understand that it is better for Paladin to use these funding requests as a way to also reduce its debt.

In Q1-2024 we focused on:

• Pushing out the tokenomics (currently in its final phase of dev post audit);
• Reworking Quest’s UX;
• Optimizing operations to reduce gas burden;
• Releasing new Quest markets (FX is live, 2 more incoming);
• Creating a new funnel for BD;
• Growing Warlord, the delegation address and the volume on Quest;

Q2-2024 will be a bit different from the previous ones as Mithras has positioned itself into a more aggressive stance, fit for a bull market, in order to optimize for opportunities. For these reasons, expenses are slightly up, with the addition of 2 interns, and the hope of hiring some more by summer.

Additionally we are requesting 2000 EUR per month for gas expenses. For the past 3 years we have covered these without a hitch for operating Quest (pushing rewards weekly) and Warlord (swapping and distributed), these expenses have ballooned with gas from 1500 EUR / month to 8000 EUR / month. We have already taken measures to heavily reduce them and feel confident they will be halved or more by the beginning of Q2.

We’re requesting 120,000 EUR (32.9 ETH at current price), which should be entirely affordable considering the DAOs current funds and its inbound revenue. Instead we’re requesting:

• 40,000 EUR / or ETH equivalent by 15/04
• 40,000 EUR / or ETH equivalent by 15/05
• 40,000 EUR / or ETH equivalent by 15/06

Our goals with this budget are the following:

• Grow the CVX delegation address to over 2M;
• Grow Quest volume to 200,000$ weekly;
• Release 3 new Quest markets;
• Work on 3 projects paving the way to Quest v3;

Means:

• 120,000 EUR (in ETH)

Voting options:

• For
• Against
• Abstain

[Bozo]

What kind of profiles are you looking to recruit ?

[Figue]

Right now we hired on the technical side, which makes sense for a dev company. I’d to hire either internally or via a new SP some serious BD profiles once we clear more revenue.

[Dydymoon]

Thanks for writing this proposal.

Overall in favor of supporting Mithras efforts and using these funding requests to reduce the debt denominated in ETH (especially since the DAO is now losing money on this loan as the assets were lended at $3K iirc & the price to buy it back is now up 20%) but I have some questions:

@Figue

Additionally we are requesting 2000 EUR per month for gas expenses. For the past 3 years we have covered these without a hitch for operating Quest (pushing rewards weekly) and Warlord (swapping and distributed), these expenses have ballooned with gas from 1500 EUR / month to 8000 EUR / month. We have already taken measures to heavily reduce them and feel confident they will be halved or more by the beginning of Q2.

It’s worth mentioning that since OnChainDen was implemented (more than 1 year ago) the DAO has the ability to pay gas costs from the multisigs if holding enough ETH, which in addition to be a huge gain of time and efficiency by avoiding the need to wait for someone to execute and then ask a refund, it also allows to cover this costs from the treasury directly.

Despite that, Figue refused several times to activate this functionality when creating transactions because he’d rather the DAO to not cover these costs, and even executed personally some transaction that had it activated.

(The above is only valid for Quests creation managed by DAO multisigs, not for Warlord swaps managed by core team multisig but this should not prevent the DAO to transfer ETH over time and cover these costs as well)

Which leads to my first questions:

• Why not just use Den and/or pay these from the treasury directly ?
• What are the measures that would enable such a drastic reduction ?
• If you estimate these costs to be halved or more and since the current max estimation is $8K monthly, why request only $2K instead of $4K monthly ?

@Figue

This proposal is a continuation of the proposal of the past quarter, with targets enabling Mithras to entirely run on these amounts over the quarter.

As Mithras Labs seems to be fully running with the DAO funding requests (which are the highest DAO expense by far atm), this proposal is lacking context & information on the beneficiaries which leads to next my questions:

• How is core team acting as the main DAO Service Provider composed ?
• What’s the role of each member ?
• When did they join Mithras ?

Also, it’s not mentioned as the proposal focuses on the EUR costs, but most (if not all ?) core team members also received a PAL allocation vested coming from the 15% of the supply allocated to Mithras in PGM-1, which leads to the topic where I have a concern.

I highlighted this a 1st time in PGM-50 (noticed when fact checking some data) but since it was unrelated, the answer received was to talk about it on a related topic, so I’lll ask again here since both topics are about Mithras funding requests (the total 7,5M PAL allocation is currently worth $1.05M)

The core team allocation was voted as visible in PGM-1 forum post & vote. Duration terms voted seems to be 6 months cliff + 3 years vesting, so a total of 42 months leading to an end of vesting in May 2025 (at least for genesis team members)

However from my understanding, the duration from the vesting contract returns 30 months, which seems to corresponds to one of the following options:

• 6 months cliff + 24 months vesting (if cliff is accounted prior to the vesting, which is how I understand PGM-1, in which case 1 year was skipped)
• 30 months vesting including 6 months cliff (if cliff is included in vesting duration, in which case 6 months was skipped)

To verify the proportions, I used the following formula: Total vesting amount - Claimable amount - Claimed amount for some addresses, which seems to show the vesting ends in less than 3 months (May 2024).

Vesting contract here: Read Contract → lockedAmount = total vesting; releasableAmount = Claimable; TotalReleasedAmount = Already claimed).

Assuming it’s a mistake made when setting up vestings, then it should be fixed by taking the following actions:

• Start a new vesting contract for missed duration & the correct amount
• Clarify the situation and communicate on changes via a PEP-XX

Of course, I could be wrong on this as I’m not an expert at reading smart contracts, in which case I’d appreciate an explanation and apologize in advance for the misunderstanding.

I also think that the DAO biggest PAL allocation ever should be more transparent, which leads to my last questions:

• What happened with the vesting duration issue described above ?
• What was the repartition & vesting for newcomers ?
• Was there any vesting stopped if old team members left ?
• What’s the unallocated part left if any ?
• If there are some left, what’s preventing Mithras from doing another fundraise ?

Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer.

[Figue]

@Dydymoon

especially since the DAO is now losing money on this loan as the assets were lended at $3K iirc & the price to buy it back is now up 20%

This is unfortunate, but we didn’t time the market, we started repaying when ETH was under 1500$ and once debt is repaid we intend to start asking for a service provider agreement, so this question of under of over paying should be irrelevant, either way the DAO is spending money to get dev work done.

@Dydymoon

It’s worth mentioning that since OnChainDen was implemented (more than 1 year ago) the DAO has the ability to pay gas costs from the multisigs if holding enough ETH, which in addition to be a huge gain of time and efficiency by avoiding the need to wait for someone to execute and then ask a refund, it also allows to cover this costs from the treasury directly.

This is true for daily ops but not contract ops like reward compounding for delegation and contract deployment.

@Dydymoon

Despite that, Figue refused several times to activate this functionality when creating transactions because he’d rather the DAO to not cover these costs, and even executed personally some transaction that had it activated.

I fail to understand how paying transactions with my own assets is a problem to anyone.

@Dydymoon

• Why not just use Den and/or pay these from the treasury directly ?
• What are the measures that would enable such a drastic reduction ?
• If you estimate these costs to be halved or more and since the current max estimation is $8K per month, why request $6K instead of $4K ?

Den is great product, but it is still money out of the treasury, I am unsure what answer you are expecting from a founder footing the bill on transaction cost of his own product. Trying my best I guess?

Measures we have deployed is compounding over a larger timeframe (2 weeks instead of one), and we revamped some contracts in order to reduce costs. As for gas costs, we paid 8000 euros in february, not in a quarter, this is now estimated to have been lowered to ~2000 euros, which is why we are requesting 6000 euros for a quarter.

@Dydymoon

As Mithras Labs seems to be fully running with the DAO funding requests (which are the highest DAO expense by far atm), this proposal is lacking context & information on the beneficiaries which leads to next my questions:

Just to clear, this is not a request for funding as a service provider, but paying back a loan, we have 0 obligations to answer any of these inquiries. I will still take the time to answer because we want to act transparently and in good faith.

@Dydymoon

The core team allocation was voted as visible in PGM-1 forum post & vote. Duration terms voted seems to be 6 months cliff + 3 years vesting, so a total of 42 months leading to an end of vesting in May 2025 (at least for genesis team members)

It was 6 month cliff + 30 months vesting (=36 months), but this was already answered privately, you just want to start a witch hunt. Very disappointing behaviour to see…

@Dydymoon

I also think that the DAO biggest PAL allocation ever should be more transparent, which leads to my last questions:

• What happened with the vesting duration issue described above ?
• What was the repartition & vesting for newcomers ?
• Was there any vesting stopped if old team members left ?
• What’s the unallocated part left if any ?
• If there are some left, what’s preventing Mithras from doing another fundraise ?

1. You have your answer above;
2. Vesting is the same for everyone, allocation is private, the same way you expect people to keep your positions private, some core members wish to remain undoxxed, I’m not sure what to tell you if you can’t respect this;
3. Yes, vesting is interrupted for team members quitting the project;
4. None of you concern, once again, but you can simply check on-chain, the unspent PAL hasn’t moved from the Safe;
5. The current PAL price action is not fit for a fundraise, and if it were, maybe fundraising via the DAO would be better for scaling?

[alex_eth]

gm Pals,
I will support this proposal, Mithras Labs is vital for Paladin growth. The increase between Q1 and Q2 is very small and explained by the addition of some interns (which is a good way to have cost efficient ressources). I wonder if the total number of the FTE working at Mithras Labs can be disclosed ? In any cases good to see Paladin DAO revenue invest in the development and improvement of the protocol !

[Figue]

Sure, we’re at 7 FTE (spread over 9 contributors with 60% devs)

[Dydymoon]

Yes indeed, luckily we started to repay lower.

@Figue

I fail to understand how paying transactions with my own assets is a problem to anyone.

You included the Quests creations in the gas costs paid by Mithras so I assumed this is why you were executing it, are you saying it’s not the case ?

If so, why are these included in the monthly gas cost estimation and requested in Mithras funding ?

@Figue

Den is great product, but it is still money out of the treasury,

Yes, but that doesn’t answer my question of why not use it directly to pay these costs rather than reducing multisig efficiencies by having to wait for a signer or Mithras to pay it, and then ask for a refund ?

@Figue

I will still take the time to answer because we want to act transparently and in good faith.

You actually didn’t answer the following questions (outside of composition of 7/9 FTE shared in the last comment)

@Dydymoon

• How is the core team acting as the main DAO Service Provider composed ?

• What’s the role of each member ?

• When did they join Mithras ?

I believe these are important if all team members are working as SP for the DAO:

@Figue

It was 6 month cliff + 30 months vesting (=36 months), but this was already answered privately, you just want to start a witch hunt. Very disappointing behaviour to see…

I don’t want to start anything, just asking for an explanation as I still think there is an issue.

Yes you told me 36 months but I still don’t get why the contract returns 30 months, especially if the cliff is included in the vesting duration & not in addition to it (which was unclear on the forum post & vote imo).

I just double checked one more time: The start date for vesting is November 1st 2021, so even with a 36 months duration cliff included, it should end on November 1st 2024 instead of May 1st 2024, in which case 6 months would be missing.

• Forum:

• Vote:

• Cliff function return 6 months:

• Duration returns 30 months:

• Start Date:

I’ve also been told that the cliff is included in the duration function on the contract in Paladin case, so if we calculate November 1st 2021 + 30 months, it gives 1st May 2024 (the date when the vestings seems to end).

Unless I misunderstand something, at least 6 months of vesting have been skipped. Also I took your public ENS as exemple to not doxx anyone, but there are other addresses in the same situation.

@Figue

1. You have your answer above;

Still not, but I hope the issue will be explained & fixed if any.

@Figue

2. Vesting is the same for everyone, allocation is private, the same way you expect people to keep your positions private, some core members wish to remain undoxxed, I’m not sure what to tell you if you can’t respect this;

I wasn’t asking to doxx anyone with names or even addresses, just requesting more transparency on how the 15% of the supply were allocated (could be done by category like you did for expenses breakdown so it’s not details on individual allocations)

Also there is a big difference between being undoxxed & being unknown from the DAO. Anyone is free to create a governance account with a pseudo so they can present themselves / their background without sharing their address or name.

@Figue

3. Yes, vesting is interrupted for team members quitting the project;
4. None of you concern, once again, but you can simply check on-chain, the unspent PAL hasn’t moved from the Safe;

I know it can be interrupted as mentioned in PGM-1, I was expecting a % of the total allocation retrieved / reallocated.

It’s actually the concern of every involved DAO member as so little details were shared on the allocation proposal. It shouldn’t be such sensitive information to ask for transparency on the biggest PAL spending of the DAO, and not everyone knows how to check on chain.

@Figue

5. The current PAL price action is not fit for a fundraise, and if it were, maybe fundraising via the DAO would be better for scaling?

That could be considered indeed but that’s another topic ig.

What price & conditions would Mithras consider acceptable to consider a future fundraise ?

[Figue]

@Dydymoon

If so, why are these included in the monthly gas cost estimation and requested in Mithras funding ?

Because they are not, we are not talking about vote incentives, but the actual protocol’s maintenance. Like most things you take for granted, Quest rounds and distribution are pushed on chain, hence, have a weekly cost.

As for the rest, the topic is not appropriate for these questions, Mithras is acting as a creditor here, not as an SP. Feel free to create other topics.

When Mithras will ask for a Service Providing budget, we will disclose the appropriate information. Vesting allocation is absolutely out of scope, and it is bewildering you think this is okay considering the lengths you go to keep your bags private.

[Figue]

If there is not other constructive comment or question on the the actual budget, we will push the vote in 48h.

[Figue]

https://signal.paladin.vote/#/proposal/0x0ddfeba76fb881ae71b4ae90d8e71c4c37220e684ae3e6d9a8f7de84a77e7758

[Dydymoon]

@Figue

As for the rest, the topic is not appropriate for these questions, Mithras is acting as a creditor here, not as an SP. Feel free to create other topics.

When Mithras will ask for a Service Providing budget, we will disclose the appropriate information.

@Figue

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.

This is not what you said in the last request for Q1 2024 in PGM-46 so hard to assume the situation changed.

Moreover, the initial loan was meant to be without deadline, so as soon as you started to request anticipated payback, it switched to SP funding requests imo, despite also being used to reduce the loan.

Sad too see that instead of just explaining what happened with vesting which is an important topic, you just avoid it & tell me to ask again somewhere (which I did it twice already)

I wished the core team would be more transparent about this, but you right it’s not directly blocking the funding request so I’ll just have to wait until you decide to clarify I guess.

@Figue

Vesting allocation is absolutely out of scope, and it is bewildering you think this is okay considering the lengths you go to keep your bags private.

The 15% of the supply were allocated by the DAO with no clear indication about distribution & terms, so the request to ask for clarifications is more than legitimate.

Everything I received from the DAO is locked on my public ENS, with the distribution & terms well known by all.

This is totally different from any private holding I may have bought as an investor, which you learned the address about because of bug reports on your product.

The fact that you keep mentioning it & using it as an argument on public discussions despite knowing it’s unrelated & meant to be private just shows how unprofessional you are on this.

Anyway, will vote yes to not penalize other team members but very disappointed by your behavior.

[Dydymoon]

Quorum PGM-51: 845 801 votes

Paladin DAO Quorums & Gov + Quest Fees Frameworks

[Figue]

@Dydymoon

Sad too see that instead of just explaining what happened with vesting which is an important topic, you just avoid it & tell me to ask again somewhere (which I did it twice already)

I’m litterally just asking you to create another thread.

@Dydymoon

The 15% of the supply were allocated by the DAO with no clear indication about distribution & terms, so the request to ask for clarifications is more than legitimate.

The terms are litterally in the proposal that allocated them, you just want a list of all recipients and match it to their addresses, which brings nothing to the DAO except doxxing. If there is a specific utility to this, by all means, create a dedicated thread.