[discussion] Should workstreams be allowed to request stables?

[a33titude]

Problem Statement

@kyle

Tensions with budgets fully funded in GTC

Receiving workstream budgets in governance tokens alone creates a burden on contributors & WS leads to navigate how best to turn that into the resources to pay one’s bills.

As the USD price of GTC fluctuates, it creates a reinforcing concern of increasing sell pressure (more tokens need to be sold to meet the same USD equivalent) and accelerating the depletion of our treasury.

Amazing articulation of a local minima of instability and insecurity that Gitcoin is in!

Solutioning

@kyle

How might we address these concerns

If workstream budgets were awarded in both GTC and a stable coin, this helps to reduce the burdens described above. Knowing that the amount of stablecoins in the treasury is finite, I would propose the following approach to issuing stable coins as part of our budgeting process:

• Under any circumstance, a workstream may request up to 15% of their workstream budget in stable coins

• A GTC/USD rate, falling below a price, would allow for the percentage to increase. Here is a table for discussion: (table-removed-to-save-space)

• There needs to be sufficient stables in the treasury to accomplish this, and gathering such stables should not further jeopardize the GTC/USD rate

This proposal just tapes over a couple major issues.

Tape Over Cracks

I think you articulate one of the cracks in the proposal really well.

@kyle

There needs to be sufficient stables in the treasury to accomplish this, and gathering such stables should not further jeopardize the GTC/USD rate

This is a hard problem because “how do you raise $1million/month to continue operations when the primary asset on your balance sheet is going down?” is a hard problem.

It’s especially hard when you havent created an escape velocity in momentum towards solving the hard problem (or worse, you haven’t even reached consensus about how you’re going to solve the hard problem yet so the creation of new velocity through action is blocked).

The biggest crack you are taping over in this proposal is that if you are in the situation in which you need to use the policy, GTCUSD is going down. If GTCUSD is going down it reflects an accelerating lack of confidence that GTC is a good asset to hold.

Yes, it would be good to create a pocket of psychological safety for the team to have salary in stables. But it’s a mirage because it’s only temporary. What happens when that pocket of psychological safety runs out of oxygen?

Yes, the DAO’s dumping of $1m/mo on market is SOME source of downward pressure. But anyone who has read the bull case for GTC knows there will be other sources of downward pressure too. Some of them are within the DAO’s control and some won’t.

So that brings me to my final point - What will the DAO do in this situation?

1. Will DAO members have the hard conversations with each other? Will they rally around each other? Will the DAO cut budgets? Will it reorganize? Will it somehow become more effective at realize the bull case for GTC? Will it leanly find sources of downward pressure on GTC and relieve them?
   or
2. will Gitcoin continue to just wander around in the abyss of being a pre-product market fit and pre-revenue startup with a $12 million/year burn & dwindling treasury and let the downward spiral of lack of confidence continue to accelerate until GTCUSD is over the brink?
   or
3. something else?

I think the DAO should get serious about reverse engineering an upward spiral from the downward spiral.

But it’s not up to me. The narrative that Gitcoin collectively pursues is the narrative that it will manfiest. (Gitcoin = multistakeholder system of token holders, protocols, GTC HODLers, GTC builders, DAO citizens, the ecosystem, Vitalik)

@kyle

What do you all think? is this reasonable?

I’m on the opposite side of the downward pressure in the market of ideas. I’m a knife catcher I now hold GTC bags. As someone who’s been holding GTC bags, I think this proposal is a good start but I do not support it and encourage the DAO to vote against it.

But if it paired with another small proposal (or set of proposals) that answers the above concerns, I would support it.

I think Gitcoin’s got good bones but in all sincerity it’s a distressed asset. A lifetime ago, before I got into investing in DAOs, I used to work real estate and got into flipping houses. Gitcoin reminds me of a house with good bones in a neighborhood that’ll maybe get hot in a few years, but it needs some repairs/TLC.

Good luck.