Dear community,
Reference is made to the open letter from @SadCatCapital from 2 May 2022. We are very thankful for the open letter and the discussions it sparked. We consider ourselves proud and lucky to have such a vibrant and engaged community – rest assured, this is not something we take lightly or for granted. The community deserves to be heard and seen, and to take an active part in our growth as a gaming DAO. After all, we are a DAO where each token holder constitutes an important piece.
In our response to the letter, we confirmed that we would be providing regular updates of the latest happenings concerning the DAO. We are each day keeping in touch and exchanging ideas with several of the members of our great community through the Telegram chat, Discord, and these governance forums. We do however acknowledge that not all community members are equally active in the various mediums or forums. This post therefore seeks to provide the (wider) community with a summary of the latest and most notable events within the DAO since the date of the mentioned open letter, including the most mentioned community topics, concerns and to touch upon the overall sentiment as of late.
As many are aware of, we post bi-monthly DAO progress update newsletters via Substack (see our latest DAO progress update newsletter from May 2022 here. These newsletters include the latest updates concerning the DAO’s operations, including various information on our four verticals. Furthermore, we publish monthly treasury reports, which include overviews and breakdowns of the DAO’s financial status (see the latest treasury report here). If you wish to stay up to date with the DAO’s progress – both operationally and financially – please consider subscribing to our newsletter here. The next DAO progress update and treasury report will be provided in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that.
In order to avoid overlap between what is reported in our newsletter (DAO progress updates and treasury reports), these posts will mainly focus on the governance related part of the DAO, i.e. a summary of what is going on in the DAO’s community.
As part of our drafting process of this post, we invited several key community members to assist in the final touches and to collaboratively publish it on the governance forum. Our intention is to continue to post these updates in collaboration with community members (we will reach out to different members from time to time).
As part of our drafting process of this post, we invited a couple of our key community members, known in the community by the names Sagey and Bruno, to assist in the final touches and to collaboratively publish it on the governance forum
We hope that all of our stakeholders (including community) will find the below of interest, and that our post will encourage further friendly and constructive discussions within our community.
Transparency & Accountability
Since the inception, our DAO has worked to be as transparent as possible, in all our activities. On 28 April 2022 – following discussions with our community – we opened up an “Accountability & transparency” thread, where we started an initiative for increased accountability and transparency. The intention behind the initiative was, amongst other things, to bridge the gap between the community members and the investors in the seed round. Therefore early (seed) investors were encouraged, on a voluntary basis, to be transparent and to provide info on e.g. their value add.
Several of our seed investors have during May and June taken up the invite and contributed to the “Accountability & Transparency” forum. In connection with this, we have also added a page to our Gitbook that includes a link to each of the early stakeholders’ thread, in addition to receiving wallet address. The “Accountability & Transparency” forum will remain open going forward and others are also welcomed to be transparent and address accountability.
Situation concerning YGG – MIP-13 and MIP-14
On 20 May 2022, one of our more engaging community members put forward a proposal (MIP-13) aimed to cancel YGG’s SAFT and refund their initial investment in the DAO. This proposal was posted following YGG’s contribution to the abovementioned “Accountability & Transparency” forum.
The proposal took the web3 space by surprise, and many actively shared their opinions on the proposal, both in the governance forum and elsewhere. The proposal touched upon many difficult topics, both legally and commercially. As part of the discussions, it was emphasized that we wanted to be seen as a DAO that can be relied upon to do business with and that wishes to honor agreements. In this connection, it was proposed to the author of MIP-13 that a “yes” to the vote would result in any action being withheld by two weeks, so that in the interim (a) YGG and MC could come up with an alternative (amicable) solution in each parties’ interest and (b) MC could provide a counter proposal to MIP-13.
MIP-13 subsequently passed with the mentioned caveat. In the following days MC and YGG continued their discussions and reverted with a counter proposal (MIP-14) on 4 June 2022, in accordance with the decision made in MIP-13. MIP-14 included a solution agreed upon by both the MC team and YGG, and which both parties were happy with. MIP-14 proposed that the DAO buys out YGG’s total of 5,468,750 $MC tokens for USDC 0.32 per token, i.e. USDC 1,750,000 in total. After discussions regarding the amicable solution, agreed upon by MC and YGG jointly, the DAO voted in favor of the counter proposal, and thus overturned MIP-13. In this connection the DAO issued a joint statement with YGG which can be read here.
The discussions that took place in connection with MIP-13 and MIP-14 demonstrated the strong passion and engagement in our community, which we are grateful for. At the same time, the processes illustrated certain flaws and areas that have room for improvement in the DAO’s current governance structure. In hindsight, we are confident that this will be considered an important test and learning experience for our DAO – innovation is also happening within the DAO governance sphere. This is an event to learn and grow from, in order to build a robust DAO governance structure for the future.
Discussions regarding staking v2 – MP-1, MP-2 and MP-3
On 25 April 2022, we opened up a thread regarding staking v2 ( Discussion: Staking v2 - Discussion - Merit Circle), which rendered vibrant discussions regarding various components concerning staking. The discussions continued far into May and June. We have during this time gauged the DAO sentiment on three specific topics through polls (MP-1, MP-2 and MP-3).
In MP-1 we asked the community which LP pairing asset it would prefer in staking v2. The majority voted in favor of the LP pair MC/USDC. Since the vote, the general market has been very poor and in a harsh downtrend. Several community members have therefore flagged that the shift from a MC/ETH pairing to a MC/USDC pairing after the recent downfall in the ETH price (denominated in USD), might need reconsidering. As the MC/USDC LP pairing was voted through a MP-poll (non-binding), the DAO is not bound to proceed with the MC/USDC LP pairing, as this ultimately needs to be decided through a MIP. In light of the recent discussions within the community concerning the LP pairing, we will carry out another sentiment check within the community regarding this topic.
MP-2 concerned the length of the LP staking in staking v2. Following discussions regarding the length, the community was presented with three alternatives, i.e. 12, 24 or 48 months. The majority voted in favor of 48 months.
In MP-3 we gauged the community sentiment in relation to the choice of platform for LP staking in staking V2. The majority voted in favor of staying at Uniswap v2 (other alternatives were e.g. Uniswap v3 and Balancer 80/20).
The staking v2 discussions are still ongoing, and everyone is welcome to share their input to the main thread concerning staking v2.
NFT aggregator incentivized by one of our community members – MIP-15
On 7 June 2022, our community member Douwe presented a proposal regarding the development of a NFT aggregator together with the DAO. In light of the upcoming release of the DAO’s NFT marketplace, Sphere (see more details below), the aim for the NFT aggregator is to, among other things, create synergies with the NFT marketplace being built by the DAO.
The discussions regarding the NFT aggregator sparked interesting exchanges of ideas between several of our tech savvy community members, including DAO team members. The proposal was eventually put to vote on 14 June 2022 and passed with clear majority.
We are very grateful for talented community members being willing to add value to the DAO and look forward to working together with Douwe and his team in connection with the NFT aggregator.
Our marketplace “Sphere” is edging closer – MIP-16
Merit Circle Ltd. has, in collaboration with Dept Agency, been developing a NFT marketplace, to be called Sphere. Sphere will be a sophisticated platform which focuses on gaming assets (more details on Sphere can be found here. On 20 June 2022, Merit Circle Ltd. put forward a proposal concerning approval of a budget for the further development of Sphere.
Various community members provided excellent responses and elaborate questions to the proposal, which required further in-depth clarifications from Merit Circle Ltd. The proposal eventually went to vote on 23 June 2022 and the majority voted in favor of it.
We are extremely excited to continue building Sphere, as we believe it will give our DAO a unique position within the gamefi space. It also creates strong synergies with our upcoming gaming platform and the NFT aggregator to be built. The revenue generated through Sphere will further contribute to the long-term viability of our DAO.
Closing remarks
As is shown by the above, our community has been busy during May and June. We have gained valuable experiences and proceeded with building various products for the benefit of the DAO.
We hope that our community appreciates these updates concerning the DAO. Please feel free to leave a response to address any information that you believe was lacking or that you wish that we shed more light on. As we intend to provide such updates on a regular basis going forward, let us know if there is anything you want done differently in the future – we are as always happy to receive your feedback.
We will also host a Q&A in the Merit Circle official Telegram channel answering all outstanding questions.
