After Prop 82 - Where Does Everyone Stand?

Prop #82 was one for the history books, with a record number of NoWithVeto votes and split-hair results dividing much of the community into opposing camps.

Now that the dust has settled and we've had some time to recover from the dramatics of it all, what happens next?

We've gathered the opinions of some of the largest contributors and influencers in the community to figure out what the future may hold.

Authors of Prop #82

- Sam

Sam Hart outlined how he will remain in the Cosmos community but will be taking a step back from the Hub & ICF.

This was confirmed on the validator Telegram chat.

- Zaki, Ethan & Jack

Zaki Manian, Ethan Buchman, and Jack Zampolin hosted a live stream soon after the veto of prop #82 on Twitter. We have summarized the main points of this discussion below, but for full context you can check out the entire video here:

TL;DW

For all three on the call, the message was received loud and clear that a lot of the community wasn't fully on board with their proposal for ATOM 2.0, and that they have some work to do.

They asked for more feedback and collaboration, while agreeing that forking is not a solution for any of the challenges regarding prop #82.

For Zaki, the objection to the treasury, uncertainty around it as a concept, and language barriers were key issues. He also shared that the goodwill he thought he had earned through his work of on-boarding new chains was not recognized by the majority of ATOM holders.

Jack agreed with both of these sentiments outlining that the feedback they received "is discouraging frankly and very tough".

Jack touched on the recent FTX collapse and how a lot of people have mistrust of centralized entities. For him, this sentiment also came through in prop #82. He outlined the clear community opposition to minting and preference for an increase in community tax.

Ethan approved of increasing the tax on the community pool saying it's "something we should have done a long time ago". He also talked about encouraging donations to the community pool to start funding more development directly.

Ethan later summed up what he's focusing on for the future via Twitter, further adding that he respects the decisions of all voters, and that as a signaling proposal, the concerns of the community have been heard and will be addressed.

- Jehan

Way back on November 10th, Jehan Tremback posted a Google doc inviting collaborators for working out how the community pool and tax could work.

Following on from this, a draft proposal has been posted to the Cosmos Hub titled 'Increasing Hub Community Tax'.

In this document, community concerns around the treasury and minting are addressed:

The proposed solution was to have a direct mint of tokens to a treasury pool. However, the Hub already has a Community Pool that has been used in the past for various community spend proposals. This pool is funded through taxation on a per-block basis. The current tax rate (as will be discussed further below) is 2%. By increasing this we can achieve a similar outcome of expanding the pool of funds available for public good funding, without the immediate creation of a new entity or the bulk minting of ATOM.

Here's what increasing the community tax could look like:

Instead of the current 0.192ATOM (0.02*9.6) being transferred to the pool with the 2% tax, a proposed 0.67ATOM (if 7%) will be given to the community pool per block. Per day this equates to (according to minting parameters) ~8,025 ATOM directed to the community pool. Yearly would add up to ~2.9M ATOMS to the pool which is significantly higher than the roughly 850K ATOM added yearly (according to current metrics).

- Youssef

Youssef Amrani gave his thoughts on prop #82 last week.

Although expressing his disappointment at the result, he admits that "the scope of prop 82 was too large". For him, the future will involve focusing on addressing the mistrust of ATOM holders, and encourage feedback earlier in the cycle so that changes can be made before a proposal is published. Check out more in the full thread above.

- Sacha

Sacha Saint-Leger shared concerns about key players in the Cosmosverse and how they can shape proposals. Jehan and Sam agreed and acknowledged that communication could be better in the future.

Other Voices

- Jae Kwon

In a Twitter thread, Jae Kwon outlines how exhausting the vote has been for all involved and called for some time to reflect before working on changes and new proposals.

For Jae, the best solution is "to increase the tax rate and remove the minimum inflation bounds of 7%".

Jae called for future talks to take place in open forums instead of on Telegram.

Later, in another Twitter thread, Jae accused Ethan Buchman of:

flirting with the idea of a "one global currency... backed by the largest and strongest nation state government" and sharing anti-Christian memes and donning that meme which is associated with the "mark of the beast"?

He goes on to ask for more truthful communications, more ICF contributions to development, and better processes to hear from community voices.

- Adriana

Adriana of KalpaTech shared a draft document proposing to increase the community pool tax from 2% to 10% as a solution to rectify the issues addressed in prop #82. For Adriana:

"the Community Pool Tax rate increase will provide the additional funds necessary to help drive further development and innovation for the Cosmos Hub."

Read the draft and conversation on the Cosmos Hub forum here:

[PROPOSAL] [DRAFT] Increasing Hub Community Tax

KalpaTech is very much in support of increasing the community pool tax to a level of 10%. Part of our solutions proposed with the NWV vote was exactly this implementation, as the calculations show that applying a 10% community pool tax ( an increase from current 2%) will result in approx. 4 mil ATO…

Cosmos Hub ForumBendyOne

- Sunny

Sunny expressed his concerns regarding having too many changes in one proposal and wishes to split them into multiple smaller modules going forward.

Final Thoughts

With the raging wildfire that was prop #82 now quenched, both sides of the vote have emerged from it's fiery embers feeling uncertain and fragmented.

Sure, there is plenty of work to be done, but solutions can be found. New conversations on community tax are taking place on the Cosmos Hub forum - a positive move towards compromise in the future of the funding structure for the Cosmos Hub.

Many hard lessons were learned regarding the size of proposals, means of communication, transparency of conversations, and the interpersonal conflicts of leaders in the space. This will hopefully lead to better communication and clearer proposals in the future.

Prop #82 also had a huge voter turnout, highlighting just how much voters truly care about the trajectory of the Hub. Perhaps more Cosmonauts will now feel emboldened to voice their opinions and offer input on the future of the chain.

Finally, with ICS (Interchain Security) set to launch in January 2023, it will become evermore important that the community finds common ground and moves forward decisively. Read more about ICS here:

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Dearest Cosmos Validators

Cosmos BlogJelena Djurić

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