Summary

Having completed its pilot phase through proposal 95, ATOM Accelerator DAO is poised to solidify as a core contributor. This proposal is seeking 975,811 ATOM in funding for the next chapter, which includes a bonus allocation of 100,000 ATOM.

Our goal is to establish AADAO as a long lasting organization exclusively focused on protecting and promoting the highest interests of the Cosmos Hub and its ATOM token. This will be achieved while remaining fully funded and owned by the Cosmos Hub community.

Achievements of AADAO in the first mandate

• Processed 211 applications in 6 months, resulting in $3.8M approved grants across 39 applicants;
• Initiated and stewarded the ATOM tokenomics revamp with the first research module by Binary, currently on chain, to build the ATOM Alignment Treasury (see prop #864);
• Promoted of ATOM as the interchain gas token with custom implementations on Leap Wallet and Metamask Snaps by Mystic Lab;
• Was the catalyst in directing the Neutron unclaimed airdrop to the ATOM community pool (42M tokens currently valued at $44M), achieving a 450% cash on cash return for the community pool in 9 months;
• Deployed and currently custodying the first ever Hub’s Protocol Owned Liquidity on Astroport on the ATOM-stATOM pool to strengthen AEZ liquidity;
• Sponsored the first ever Hub’s specific Hackathon in partnership with DoraHacks;
• Launched an AEZ Accelerator with Neutron and Long Hash.

This proposal is summarized by the following propositions

• The grant program will shift around half of its grant allocation towards RFPs and high priority grants to maximize the ROI (eg, tokenomics RFP). AADAO remains committed to supporting open grant submissions, balancing AADAO strategic priorities with grassroots, community-driven projects.
• The DAO will seek to achieve financial self-sustainability. AADAO wants to strike the following balance: remain fully aligned with ATOM while reducing its overall cost on the ATOM community pool. As such, for all revenue-shares, airdrops, and fees AADAO generates for ATOM community pool, it is suggesting a 20% ‘sustainability holdback’ in order to fund its own operational expenses;
• AADAO wishes for more community representation and is opening its oversight committee to one ATOM gov elected member to further strengthen its community alignment;
• AADAO is raising the bar in transparency by migrating its multisig and treasury management capabilities to DAO DAO, where its Oversight Committee will have the power to VETO any disbursement;
• AADAO is professionalizing by moving to a predominantly full time employment model in order to have a larger impact and reach;
• AADAO will implement a purpose trust structure and continue to evolve its internal protocols;
• Any spending exceeding 2x the ask under this proposal (in $ terms) would require a governance proposal to extend the total spent allowed.

Team

Strategy Committee

• Youssef Amrani, AADAO co-founder & Program Manager, lead of the strategy committee
• Better Future: AADAO co-founder
• Riley Edmunds: Stride Labs co-founder

Grant Committee

• Xavier Meegan, Reviewer
• Reena Shtedle, Reviewer
• Dilan Asatekin, Reviewer
• Joni Z, Reviewer
• Facundo Medica, Technical Reviewer
• Delisse Gamboa, Administrative assistant
• 4 full time to recruit: Marketing Lead, Grant Lead, Tech Product Lead and Developer

Additional Material

Full proposal text on the Cosmos Hub forum

IPFS pin of full text with comments

Notes

• The funding, if approved, will be sent to AADAO original multisig (same multisig as prop #95).
• This proposal covers AADAO activities for 2024. However, the allocated funds could last longer in the case of ATOM price appreciation, in which case AADAO would only seek funding when required.

Governance votes

The following items summarize the voting options and what it means for this proposal: YES: you agree to fund AADAO with 975,811 ATOM for 2024 to pursue its stewardship of the Cosmos Hub via its grant program; NO: you do not agree to fund AADAO for 2024 based on the terms of this proposal NOWITHVETO: you express that you consider this proposal malicious or harmful and would like to see depositors penalized by revocation of the deposit, which contributes towards an automatic ⅓ veto threshold. ABSTAIN: you formally decline to vote either for or against the proposal but want to contribute to the quorum.