Wow, that’s a lot of information all at once! I appreciate you raising these points, Simona. I think they are healthy in bringing us closer to fully understanding the nature of the problem. I spent a lot of time the last few hours researching more about this project and speaking to the affected users. I also tried reaching out to the Force team to get a better idea of the situation. Here are some of the things I was able to uncover to address your concerns:
“Is there an instance where the “donors” were in effect purchasing their share in ForceDAO?”
The research I found shows that Force and Gitcoin partnered together to host the Force prize which was an ongoing competition scheduled to take place every 6 months in the form of Gitcoin Hackathons. The grant was set up at the time to fund an operation/org to build yield strategies, and never a membership in a DAO. Based on the different sources, this appears to have always been a grant, and the team set it up in conjunction with Gitcoin. There was no portrayal of any equity compensation when it happened, contrary to speculation.
“Is there a record of the accounts who donated actually using or being active contributors to ForceDAO?”
I spoke to some of the eligible members to ask about their contributions to Force, and the two users who make up the largest share of this proposal’s GTC pool (haj199 and sitnyaga) have both been active members to Force DAO. Although Force turned out unsuccessful, both these users played a part in the project. Members of the Force team who I was able to get in contact with confirmed this, noting how Haj199 was consistently active in advisory and strategy assistance, while Sytnyaga is actively assisting with the project’s recent pivot to a new direction following its past difficulties.
At the end of the day, I’d prefer not place words in other people’s mouths by making claims about what they will or will not do, but if my word as the creator of this proposal counts for anything, here’s what I think: I personally do not believe these users will offload the GTC upon claim if this proposal passes.
There is no way to guarantee this and I say this based purely on gut instinct. As an optimist, I always try to see the truth and good in people’s words. Based on their past behavior contributing to Force and based on my interactions with them over the last few months, I think these users truly want to be active in helping govern Gitcoin.
I know I said this before, but having worked with some of these users for months on this proposal, and after listening to their great ideas and plans to contribute to Gitcoin, I think the community will benefit from their future involvement. These users are great workers and I am very grateful to have met them and learned from them in this time period. I understand there is some headwind against the proposal right now, and this saddens me. I have dedicated much time and effort to this proposal because I truly believe in it, and I tried my absolute best to get people to share my enthusiasm towards it as well. It’s been a tremendous journey working on this project for so long and learning so much about how Gitcoin operates during this time period, and I can’t wait to undertake new projects moving forward as well.
I just ask for those of you who voted against this proposal, to reevaluate your vote based on my findings above. And if there are still those who disagree or have any other new information that I haven’t been made aware of to add to the discussion, I gladly welcome it and ask that you please leave a comment. The more angles we cover, the clearer I believe a decision to vote can be made.