Summary

This proposal is made by Simply Staking to address our situation following the failures of the technical committee appointed by the Cosmos Hub community through Proposal 72.

Proposal 72 was initiated with the goal of financially supporting three teams with early runway to build applications with a vision of becoming consumer chains of the Hub and aligning with the AEZ. A Funding Committee was appointed with the mandate to select suitable projects on behalf of the Hub community, and to administer the distribution of grant funds to these projects. The projects ended up being Neutron, Fairblocks, and our project, now known as EntryPoint.

The agreed-upon structure was to disburse 50% of the funds upon submission of a forum post and the remaining 50% upon achieving consumer chain status. However, as you might have seen from our recent post the committee did not adhere to this, effectively not upholding the promises made on behalf of the Cosmos Hub community.

Details

The following is a succinct timeline of events:

• September 2022: Confirmation was received that Simply Staking qualified for the Proposal 72 grant.
• October 2022: Our project, EntryPoint, was unveiled at Cosmoverse, with the backing of Prop 72 funding.
• October 2022 - June 2023: We dedicated ourselves to EntryPoint’s development, consistently updating the committee. No changes or deadlines regarding the funding were communicated.
• May 2023: A potential conflict of interest was raised by a Committee member.
• 30 June 2023: Our open letter was shared on the Cosmos Hub forum, and subsequently went unanswered by the Committee.
• July 2023: Attempts to communicate with the Committee were largely unacknowledged.
• August 2023: We discovered the promised funds had been returned to the community pool.

As a long-standing Cosmos contributor, Simply Staking has always strived to act professionally and in good faith, even in the face of this disappointing situation we now find ourselves in. We have tried to engage with the Funding Committee, but our efforts have largely been met with either silence or lack of accountability. We have been told by several people in the community that since the funds have been returned to the community pool, we should engage with the community to receive our promised funds.

And so we now turn to you, the Cosmos Hub community, with the hope of resolving this matter once and for all. We understand that the community’s word is final and this will be the last time we address this situation, whatever the outcome may be.

We believe that we have held to our end of the agreement reached with the Proposal 72 committee. We have invested significant time, resources and funds into our project, with a good amount of these resources allocated to understand what a move to ICS entails and how we should be adapting our project’s technical and governance specifications to account for this new paradigm, based on the assumption that we will be receiving funds allocated from Proposal 72.

On the other hand, the Funding Committee chose to ignore the promises made towards us and to simply wash their hands and disburse the funds back to the Hub; notwithstanding the clear financial repercussions of this decision to our team.

Furthermore, this behaviour sets a clear precedent that will make any party wanting to collaborate with the Cosmos Hub think twice lest the promises made by any committee on behalf of the Hub be simply ignored later by the committee itself. This is the last thing the Cosmos Hub needs as it establishes itself as one of the foremost open governance-driven projects in the world.

Therefore, with this proposal, we’re asking the Cosmos community to address the committee’s actions to ensure that past commitments are honoured, and see that the 16,250 ATOM (½ of the earmarked funds) that was pledged by the Funding Committee to support the development of our project is distributed accordingly.

We think that this vote should not be influenced by your opinion of our project. Instead, it should focus on whether the Hub community should uphold the agreement made on its behalf by the Prop 72 Funding Committee—an agreement which the committee did not wish to honour.

Your engagement with this proposal and our prior forum post is genuinely appreciated. Thank you for giving these matters your time and consideration.

Recipient

cosmos1ypkeecv2dw58lqsdj5uhkx4ygdl9y3nzhr4jkf

Amount

16250 ATOM

Forum post link

https://forum.cosmos.network/t/proposal-last-call-rectifying-proposal-72-committee-actions/11959

Governance votes

The following items summarize the voting options and what it means for this proposal:

• YES - By voting yes, you agree that Simply Staking should receive the funds it was promised by the technical committee appointed via Proposal 72. The funds will be taken from the community pool and sent directly to the address cosmos1ypkeecv2dw58lqsdj5uhkx4ygdl9y3nzhr4jkf.
• NO - By voting no, you do not agree that Simply Staking should receive the funds it was promised by the technical committee appointed via Proposal 72.
• NO WITH VETO - A ‘NoWithVeto’ vote indicates a proposal either (1) is deemed to be spam, i.e., irrelevant to Cosmos Hub, (2) disproportionately infringes on minority interests, or (3) violates or encourages violation of the rules of engagement as currently set out by Cosmos Hub governance. If the number of ‘NoWithVeto’ votes is greater than a third of total votes, the proposal is rejected and the deposits are burned.
• ABSTAIN - You wish to contribute to quorum but you formally decline to vote either for or against the proposal.