when we engaged back at the start of the year we would be engaging in regular market making activities once the LBP had concluded and we set up the liquidity pool for you. Some time has passed and we have not billed the DAO for any of the interim tasks we have executed. That is both a sign of goodwill to help out however we can as well as that we did not find ourselves in a position to effectively market make on chain. We now come to the point where we are active liquidity providers on a CEX and, therefore, bill accordingly. We will use this as the starting point of our 6 month term. All the reports and tasks that have been executed and shared have been pro bono.
We will send these invoices at the end of every month and serves as payment for the month to come. Hence this payment serves as the payment for September.
Title
Proposal to pay for Artisâ market making
Proposal
Transfer 5,000 USDT/C to Artis Global LTD.
Purpose: On-chain and CEX market making for the month of September
Amount: 5,000 USDT/C (five thousand)
Chain: Ethereum Mainnet / Arbitrum
Artis Global LTD. Receiving Address (Ethereum Mainnet - Arbitrum): 0x420B7A32ae9294372786ed5120AD9FeB6bd99128
No link to this discussion in the on-chain proposal.
No link to previous discussions about market making, nor of any discussion of price linked in this post.
To me, this is extremely poor communication from day zero. Transparency and accountability are a must. Iâm not seeing any from you guys, and I havenât even started reviewing anything you might or might have been doing on market making because there is no possible information we are getting from you, the risk youâre taking, the impact youâre makingâŚ
To add to what @Lanski has said, it seems like we are in a position that is not currently covered by any agreements. The initial agreement was from 1st March - 31 August which we have obviously gone past (and the forum discussion related to that proposal was not conclusive with the last comment being a request for a revised proposal.)
Whilst I do appreciate the goodwill of not charging us until now, we should formalise the relationship going forward so that at the very least we know when the term will end and can arrange new votes as appropriate.
Before re-raising the payment proposal for the next 6 months, it would be great to see the details @Lanski has requested above.
I am not sure if this is covered, but I would also be interested on where we are with a coinmmarketcap listing and also the telegram group where you answer questions.
I saw in the TG chat that Hendo felt 0x36 already voted for this and that Artis is owed this payment. However, Iâm not sure itâs as clear as Artis is asserting it is.
I might not be reading everything correctly, but I think 0x36 voted to use Artis for an initial period only, and you add this in your post above:
However, Hendoâs comments in the TG group today seem to contradict this where he stated:
âThis proposal is simply a âHey, the DAO voted us in previously, weâre here to collect payment for what was voted onââ (it didnât feel appropriate to provide the screenshot)
I canât tell if youâre saying 0x36 owes you funds for previous services, or if Artis is asking for 0x36 to renew the service agreement for the next 6 months.
I donât believe the DAO has explicitly confirmed it would like to continue the relationship with Artis beyond the initial period, although the current vote might be serving as a sort of proxy referendum on that question.
For context, Artis was paid 5,000 USDC and 300,000 SHU in Proposal #12.
The 300,000 SHU was for pre-LBP advisory
The 5,000 USDC was for the first month of post-LBP service
If Artis doesnât feel that they are owed more for services to date (as implied in your post), then perhaps the conversation should be about what terms youâre proposing for future services.
Apologies if Iâm conflating things or not understanding, but in my defense itâs really tough to untangle this, and Iâve paid pretty close attention.
Perhaps we should start from a clean point of reference at this moment by gathering the data together here.
Could you clarify the following:
What were the exact terms of the original agreement, including duration and compensation structure?
What specific services has Artis provided since the initial agreement?
What do you feel you are owed, and for what time period?
What assets of 0x36 does Artis currently hold?
What are the proposed next steps, including any terms for future services if applicable?
For starters, apologies for not getting back here directly. I have been really under the weather.
I appreciate the concerns raised and coming to this post for actual discourse. I invite you all to think along about the situation we find ourselves in and how we got here in the first place.
We would like to start by clarifying the situation and apologize for the limited amount of information provided in the Decent proposal. The proposal covers payments for work that was already voted on, approved, and most of it completed, but out of courtesy, no payments were requested earlier as the impact was still being assessed. Now, we are simply seeking the payment for that work as originally planned.
We recommend proceeding with this proposal as the economic parameters and transactions remain the same. However, if the community feels strongly about it, a new proposal can be raised, though it would result in the same economic terms and outcomes.
I will attempt to link through to as many of the relevant materials as possible. I have left the pre-LBP advisory out of it, but know that we have been awarded a SHU allocation and havenât touched that since.
Artis as a market maker
This was the discourse post to tackle the intricacies of the initial agreement between 0x36 and Artis:
TLDR: 6 months of initial term at $5,000.00 a month.
the following is a quote from the proposal:
âA post-LBP market maker will help Shutter DAO 0x36 transition from the LBP to market liquidity by creating DEX pools, securing listing on CEXs, provide liquidity for efficient trading and minimal price impact, and other related services.â
From that perspective, we have never held back in helping out with providing any of these services except for active back-and-forth trading of the liquidity pool. The premise was to cover the liquidity pool until we could swiftly get on a centralized exchange to fully focus efforts there and keep arbitrage between the different venues to a minimum.
on-chain activity
We executed a shielded deployment of the liquidity pool right after the LBP concluded:
We deviated to a âcheaperâ alternative pool from the main V2 Uni pool in active discourse with the DAO
We have made ourselves available for the following premise that is still ongoing: Decent
Ongoing attempts to connect with a reputable CEX for SHU listing
The current CEXs that feature SHU for trading are all free listings and not something the DAO has ever paid a penny for (or really had a say in preventing it from being listed).
We leveraged our contacts at CEXs in order to come to the stage of a proposal for a listing but we ran into the recurring issue that no CEX (thatâs worth pursuing) is willing to openly commit to a pre listing announcement on a forum such as this and put a price next to it.
This limited the options we had to get SHU listed in decent time after the LBPs conclusion. We have been helped by someone closely connected to the DAO to start with activity on BingX, which actually yielded some results and we were happy to continue this route until we can get a party like Gate to commit to getting a proposal on a forum. This is still very difficult because they donât have a publicly known amount of cash that it would take to list on the platform. Gate serving as an example of how this generally works for their tier of CEX and up.
Letâs call this miscellaneous:
I am seeing comments about a lack of transparency where instead we have always been available for input and our general help (we spun up a Telegram for that, and no one has ever gone unanswered). Our commitment to being above board should be reflected in the fact that we organised a call with literally anyone who cared to listen in to make sure everything is clear from the start.
the advisory surrounding general token health and sustainability through the slow periods and general best practices on market has all been readily available to folks such as Brainbot employees
Coingecko applications and more importantly maintenance thereof has gone through us
we have chipped in on the parameters and suggested paths for both liquidity pools as well as the ongoing conversations there were around the treasury management for 0x36.
Reports
We have attempted to keep the DAO up to speed by providing weekly updates here:
That also covered the balance from week to week which we have in our custody both on chain as well as eventually on CEX.
For perfect clarity, Artis currently holds:
on chain: 80,000.00 USDC and 399,978.00 SHU (in the wallet we doxed to the DAO: 0x108769199a98c65e68d2b9b5edc8d9464853a729)
formerly on BingX: 21,712.44 USDT and 306,382.00 SHU â
this has been withdrawn to JLHâs custody in light of the hack that took place on BingX
Current Situation
The Decent proposal served as a continuation of our service, which had once been greenlit already. We just did not want to assume payment of that yet as we felt there was no significant upside to adding high-frequency trading to the mix. That is to say, not just Artis but any market-making effort that would be focused on trading would have been a waste of time and funds.
We did not feel comfortable cashing a check for that as we are also in this for the long run. There is no point in us draining funds from the DAO and leave with a bad taste after 6 months of initial term. That is the only reason we have not charged beyond the first month.
As we have entered the final quarter of the year in a market where everyone is at least optimistic about what this sprint has to bring (especially after BTCâs record-breaking September), we want to dive into the proper trading side of things as it will be to the DAOs benefit.
This means that we are also going to be receiving payment (under the exact same constraints and parameters as the initial agreement). Absolutely nothing has changed except for moving the date of engagement for Artis to September.
At the end of everything that was said and done both on Telegram as well as here, it looks as if payment has now become optional instead of mandatory. Artis simply wants to continue what we have been doing and adding the trading on top for the pre-determined monthly retainer distributed to us each 30-day servicing period.
If the DAO is firmly against this then we part ways here and the 5 months that went without payment should then be straightened out between us. That is not because I firmly believe this is the right way to go about it, but that is under the premise of enforcing a previously approved contract we engaged in.
provide a summary of the relationship between Shutter DAO 0x36 and Artis
pose three questions to help us move forward
I have tied to ensure all information is complete and accurate. If you see any omissions or errors, please let me know and I will fix them.
Summary
Grant
Shutter DAO 0x36 approved a grant to Artis (5,000 USDC per month for 6 months) for post-LBP market making services for SHU token for six months (March-August 2024).
(I would recommend that Question 1 is resolved before discussing Question 2, and so forth.)
1. Grant for Post-LBP Market Making Services (March-August 2024)
Is Artis seeking an additional disbursement under the existing grant? If so, how much?
2. Retroactive Reward for Market Making Services (September-October 2024)
Is Artis seeking an disbursement for services provided after the end of the existing grant? If so, how much?
3. Grant for Market Making Services (November 2024 and beyond)
Is Artis seeking a new grant? If so, for what services and for how much?
Next Steps
@Lanski@d0z3y@5pence and other Shutter DAO 0x36 members - Please let me know if the summary above is correct and if the three questions above are appropriate.
If so, then we can proceed to discuss and make a decision on each question in order.
If not, then we can correct the summary and choose another path forward.
Firstly, thanks @Cornelis , for your detailed post. I appreciate the effort of pulling it all together. I also appreciate that Artis are working in good faith.
Fundamentally I think we are suffering from a breakdown in communication.
On the Artis side, this could have been avoided if it was made clear at the early stages of the engagement period (March-August) that the market making services should be delayed 6 months. I would have preferred if this was a joint decision agreed early on (not because it was a bad decision but instead we wouldnât have had the confusion of a grant request starting in September). This was compounded by the dcent proposal which should have included more detail and a disperse set of related communication (helpfully listed above!)
On the DAO side, I donât think we have sufficiently clear governance in place. We have relied on some DAO members to communicate with Artis up until the point of a vote when others (including myself) have gotten involved, without the full context.
I appreciate both parties view things differently but fundamentally, I agree that Artis should be paid for services provided.
In terms of moving forward, I would support
âmoving the date of engagement for Artis to Septemberâ
My assumption is that this would mean a retrospective payment for September, then 4 further payments (given March was already paid). Bringing the total to 6 months as originally agreed. Then prior to the end of the year, we prepare for a vote to continue into next year.
As part of the prep for a vote on 2025, we should dig into some of the other points that have been raised by DAO members over the last couple of weeks e.g:
The benefits of CEX listing
(if there are benefits) how we can make the DAO comfortable with paying fees
How we communicate going forward
Any changes in reporting etc.
On the DAO side we must continue to improve our governance processes such that the above issues can be avoided in future.
I would hope that going forward we can move back towards a less contentious relationship!
If the question here is as simple as âArtis feels theyâre owed 6 months worth of Market Maker services and they have only been able to deliver one monthâ, then Iâll support the additional 5 months of service.
I do think there are several instances here in the forum of this relationship being colored with friction. There are examples of DAO members asking direct questions and not getting answers, some even in this thread.
My vote would be contingent on Artis first being very clear about the specific services will be providing, and the compensation that they will be receiving in return.
If this situation repeats itself and Artis isnât able to Market Make in the coming months (for any reason), or if they donât live up to any other commitments, would this stream continue or would it be ended?
It might also be helpful to establish the current future bounds of the relationship, if only to avoid future situations like this.
I think the problem is on the shutter side, there should be a responsible person in the shutter community that oversees what Artis does, and then gives a feedback, summary to the DAO and the DAO acts on it. I can not humanly understand all the intricacies and assess what Artis has done. As I consider this is a problem both on the part of the DAO and the part of Artis, I would suggest to cut in half the pie, so pay Artis what they request, but in return have a commitment to inform and organize communication with the community. Furthermore, a responsible on the Shutter DAO should then assess Artisâs actions and suggest voting for the DAO based on his assessment.
We mostly share the same view with 5pence. While I think Artis act in good faith, We agree they should be paid for what has done, but regrettably we cannot say all the work are well executed & timely. If we look at the list deliverable we cannot say that has all been deliver & also cannot say all communication has been smooth.
We missed a critical time window & now finding new market for SHU is more difficult. The initial objective of market making on BingX is to list on more liquid CEXs but that has not been prove productive. That objective should have been seriously pursued actively. The Shutterx36 DAO need to think about what is best way to use the treasury in the given market.
I would suggest to we create another vote/post on whether continue with their service (after they got paid for what they have done) & whether it make sense to invest on MM/Listing heavily right now given the market does not like to trade alts at all. If it does, what will be objective which later use to measure the performance
Might be a good time to revisit the DAO process on this topic and treasury management in general.
Thank you, @Loring, for summarizing this clearly. We would like to have Artisâs answers to these three questions in order to move forward.
Moreover, is market making currently a key activity that the DAO must pursue given the current market conditions? As @han mentioned, the CEX listing and MM onBingX did not seem to bring significant results. We think it makes sense that the DAO reconsider the MM/Listing approach . If we proceed this way, we should have clear objectives and track them accurately.
One more thing that could be valuable for the DAO to accessâand important for Artis to share for transparencyâis the monthly Profit & Loss (P&L) changes of the DAOâs assets across both decentralized (DEXs) and centralized exchanges (CEXs) in each bill month
I believe this is a key metric for understanding the risks the DAO is taking and the actual costs of market making
Looking forward to a summary from Artis @ Cornelis@Hendo