Shutter DAO 0x36 to fund public goods. Automatically and at no cost

Shutter DAO
1

Hi everyone,

I’m Bram and I’m working for Glo Dollar (we just launched Glo Dollar 2.0). I learned about Shutter DAO 0x36 through Octant and Public Nouns.

Questions for Discussion

I’d love to share some ideas/questions with you, and explore whether there’s any synergies to pursue.

  1. Does Shutter DAO 0x36 have plans to support public goods? If so, what kinds of public goods?
  2. Would Shutter DAO 0x36 be open to holding a percentage of its stablecoin holdings in USDGLO (and fund public goods at no cost)? If so, what percentage would be ideal?
  3. Would Shutter DAO 0x36 be open to disbursing grants in USDGLO instead of USDC?
  4. Are there other ways in which Shutter DAO 0x36 and Glo Dollar could collaborate?

Glo Dollar

Glo Dollar (USDGLO) is the stablecoin that funds public goods. It’s 100% fiat-backed, always redeemable 1:1 for USD and USDC, issued and regulated in the United States, and receives monthly independent attestations. Glo Dollar is available on 7 chains: Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Celo, Stellar, and Base. Glo Dollar’s parent organization is the Glo Foundation and is issued by Brale.

Stablecoin companies generate up to $7.4 billion annually from their stablecoin reserves.

Our approach is different—we funnel 100% of our profits to charitable causes. By adopting Glo Dollar, you’re funding public goods. At no cost.

How it works

What happens when you buy Glo Dollars:

  1. The fiat backing Glo Dollar is invested and earns revenue (similar to other stablecoins).
  2. We donate 100% of our profits on these investments to public goods and charities.
  3. You’re funding public goods at zero cost.

We call this Automatic Public Goods Funding. Or AutoPGF. :magic_wand:

Choosing the causes to support is simple and can be done from our app: https://app.glodollar.org/. We’ll add more causes on a rolling basis.

Opportunities for Collaboration

Two ways stand out to me as to how Shutter DAO could fund public goods at no cost with Glo Dollars:

  1. Swapping a percentage of stablecoin holdings to Glo Dollars
  2. Disbursing grants in USDGLO (by doing this, Shutter DAO 0x36 is actively using Glo Dollars)

Would love to hear if this is something you’re interested in, and what kinds of public goods you’d like to fund.

2 Likes
2

Welcome to the Shutter Forum and thank you for your post @bramglo!

Since this is not a proposal but rather a discussion, I have moved this to the general Shutter DAO category.

1 Like
3

@bramglo Thanks so much for starting this discussion. I’m a big fan of public goods funding - especially automated / passive funding goods mechanisms like Glo Dollar.

Questions & Answers

Shutter DAO 0x36 recently provided a grant to brainbot gmbh to continue building the FOSS behind Shutter - which is a public good. But AFAIK, Shutter DAO 0x36 does not currently have other plans to support / fund public goods.

Off the top of my head, Shutter FOSS has dependencies on Geth, op-geth, Tendermint and Protocol Guild. So these would be a good place to start funding public goods. Also, as @czepluch and others have pointed out - Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev’s Legal Defense is important and deserves more funding. I’m sure Shutter DAO 0x36 will be able to identify many worthy causes.

Shutter DAO 0x36 currently holds roughly 6.5M USDC in the treasury.

IMO the 6.5M USDC can be divided into two chucks - assets which are needed in the short term (within the next three months), and those needed in the long term.

Short Term

I am in favor of converting all (or most) of our short term assets from USDC to USDGLO. Shutter DAO 0x36 is not generating yield on these assets - and AFAIK does not intend to do so. As such, Shutter DAO 0x36 is able to fund public goods at no cost (or opportunity cost) other than the cost of the swap.

I am also in favor of paying out Shutter DAO 0x36 grants in USDGLO. Grant recipients can either keep the USDGLO - or swap it to USDC (or another asset) if they prefer.

Long Term

I am not in favor of converting any (or only a small amount) of our long term assets from USDC to USDGLO. Shutter DAO 0x36 should invest the majority of long term assets with the goal of generating yield and extending the resources/runway of the project. If Shutter DAO 0x36 were to hold USDGLO rather than investing USDC, then it would be funding public goods - but it would incur the opportunity cost. (If/when there are comparable yield generation opportunities for USDGLO as USDC, then I would be in favor of including USDGLO in our long term asset investment strategy.)

As mentioned above, I am in favor of this. If Shutter DAO 0x36 holds our short term stablecoin assets in USDGLO, then we should pay out grants in USDGLO too.

Two ideas:

Glo Consortium

Shutter DAO 0x36 could join the Glo Consortium. It is free and symbolic, so there is no reason for us not to do so.

Shutter Nouns DAO

Glo Dollar could join as a founding partner of the Shutter Nouns DAO. See: Shutter Nouns DAO.

Other Comments

Security Rating

I am glad to see that Bluechip (a non-profit stablecoin rating agency) recently rated USDGLO (B) - which is lower than USDC and DAI (B+) but much higher than USDT and GHO (D). This give me confidence in USDGLO.

Glo Dollar 2.0

I am also glad to see that Glo Dollar now funds a range of charitable causes. But I have a couple questions: Is there a list of charities - or can Shutter DAO 0x36 choose which charit(ies) it would like to support? If we can choose, does the charity need to meet any specific requirements (like being a 501(c)(3) in the USA)?

Core Values

One of Shutter’s core values is decentralization. USDGLO is a centralized stablecoin. But it does promote stablecoin diversity - which makes Ethereum more resilient.

Disclaimer

I am sharing this comment in my personal capacity as an individual member of the Shutter community, and not in my official capacity as an employee of brainbot gmbh.

4 Likes
4

I’m mostly in agreement with @Loring replies on this topic. I would only add the following notes which are my own view:

  1. Public Goods: Maybe there is also an angle for funding public goods in terms of MEV research.

I would love to see Shutter DAO 0x36 have a budget to fund it’s dependencies, MEV research and implementation and at least a small budget for General Public goods like lifting people out of poverty or other positive social and environmental impact.

  1. Holding a percentage of it’s stablecoins holding in USDGLO.

I agree that short-term funding makes most sense. I would like to see even a small percentage of the Long Term in USDGLO maybe a 1% commitment to funding public goods. Maybe more than 1%. Probably less than 10%.

Everything else, I agree with @Loring

3 Likes
5

We should definitely partner with as many projects as we can, Shutter tech should be everywhere it can be haha. Have no opinion on Glo Dollars but in general not a fan of any stables except for USDC, maybe sUSD is what is acceptable for me since i have many frens in Synthetix community =)

2 Likes
6

Hi Loring,

Thanks for your elaborate reply. I’ll break up my reply in different sections to keep things structured: Kinds of Public Goods that we can fund, Short vs Long Term Holdings, Security rating, Shutter Nouns DAO, and Glo Consortium. I’ll add a :question:emoji in front of questions.

Kinds of Public Goods/Charities that we can fund with Glo Dollar 2.0

With our upgraded protocol, it’s possible to donate to 3 specific cause areas: fighting extreme poverty, web3 public goods, and combating climate change.

It’s likely that we’ll be adding more (1) charities, (2) charities/organizations as part of a cause area, and (3) cause areas on a rolling basis. Examples:

  1. Charity = X nonprofit as a stand-alone funding option
  2. Charity/organization as part of a cause area, e.g. part of web3 public goods
  3. Cause areas similar to ‘fighting extreme poverty’, e.g. ‘saving animal lives’

I could see us adding orgs like Geth, op-geth, Tendermint and Protocol Guild to our web3 public goods cause area. We’re currently determining whether there will be more requirements for organizations for us to donate to. Right now, all organizations that we donate to have nonprofit status (e.g. 501(c)(3) in the USA.

If there’s an interesting organization for us to donate funds to without nonprofit status, we could also review the possibility of a fiscal sponsorship (from e.g. Global Impact).

Perhaps, if this leads to a proposal, we could review suggested organizations by Shutter DAO 0x36 and evaluate which ones could be added as funding opps in our dApp.

Short vs Long Term Holdings

I really like the idea of moving some of the short term holdings to Glo Dollar, as well as paying out grants in Glo Dollar.

:question:Could you share an estimate of the Short Term vs Long Term Holdings?

Security rating

Thanks for picking up on our Bluechip rating. It’s great to see that we’re deemed safer than some (much) larger stablecoins. Tether’s USDT has a market cap 40,000x ours, and yet has a lower safety rating + we donate 100% of our yield.

The B-grade is the initial rating. Together with the team at Brale, we’ll be working on expanding to more custodians, redemption timelines, and audits to further boost our rating.

Shutter Nouns DAO

We’d be interested in joining the Shutter Nouns DAO as a founding organization. I’ll make sure to add my thoughts to the thread you shared.

Glo Consortium

We’d love it if Shutter DAO 0x36 would join the Glo Consortium, and by hodling Glo Dollars, the DAO would automatically qualify.

1 Like
7

Hi Cotabe,

It’s possible to select the funds to which Shutter DAO 0x36 would like our yield to go. As shared in my reply to Loring, we can also explore adding specific organizations as proposed by Shutter DAO 0x36 (likely as part of the web3 public goods cause area).

Currently, users can only choose one fund to receive the yield. We are developing a dApp feature that will allow users to distribute their yield among multiple charities. For example, they could allocate 50% to one cause, 30% to another, and 20% to a third cause. Meanwhile, it’s possible to keep holdings in 2-3 wallets to select 2-3 funds.

I’m really glad both you and Loring are in favor of swapping Shutter DAO 0x36’s Short Term Holdings to Glo Dollar.

1 Like
8

@acidbird, I’m glad that you like USDC, because you’re all the more likely to love USDGLO…

In many ways, USDGLO is comparable to USDC. Both are fiat-backed, maintain a 1:1 peg with USD, undergo monthly attestations, and recently received Bluechip ratings (ours being a B grade, slightly lower than USDC’s B+ grade).

On top of all that, we donate 100% of our profits to fund public goods of your choice, instead of extracting it for gains. :rainbow::sunny:

As for the SUSD preference, I think that having friends shouldn’t be the biggest criterion in deciding which stablecoins to use. Instead would consider factors such as:

  • Safety. Glo Dollar (USDGLO) has a Bluechip B-grade rating, versus SUSD’s F rating.
  • Liquidity. Glo Dollar is always redeemable 1:1 for USD, and it’s possible to mint/redeem with our issuer directly or with other partners such as Skyline Digital, BitGo, and Keyrock.
  • Mission-alignment. If Shutter DAO 0x36 decides to use Glo Dollars, the yield our organization receives could go to web3 (OS) public goods, which creates a virtuous circle to grow ecosystems. With other stablecoins, that yield would go to shareholders and be extracted from the ecosystem.

One thing that I would grant is that it’s beneficial being close to the issuer of the stablecoin (that may be the case with you and SUSD). In our case, we can set up direct lines between the leadership team of issuer of Glo Dollar (Brale) and Shutter DAO 0x36 for fast and efficient communication.

1 Like
9

“Temp Check” is up on Snapshot now

Thanks, @Cotabe

2 Likes
10

Hi,

I voted against this proposal.

I love Glo Dollar. However, I voted based on the short-term Shutter DAO token holders goals:

  • New “DeFi saving methods” are always riskier, compared to more established alternatives. While Glo has solid backing, it is not risk free, as there is always regulatory risk and such things that are out of Glo’s own control
  • Shutter itself does not have any revenue to speak of yet, so it should focus on delivering the core promises first - taking risks and out-of-focus activities before the core product is making revenue is not the best interest of token holders
  • Shutter is small and does not have too much impact on Glo
  • Let’s leave getting the initial Glo launch for those industry actors that can tolerate more risk and have more human resources (large DAOs, CEXes, etc.)

If the vote does not pass, I recommend revisiting this decision as soon as Shutter makes revenue.

If the vote passes, let’s have Glo involved, but in a limited manner.

4 Likes
11

Hi everyone, the “Temp Check” on Snapshot closed this morning with these results:

  • Support: 57.76%
  • Against: 25.92%
  • Abstain: 16.33%
  • Quorum: 48M / 30M :white_check_mark:

The “Temp Check” received 41 votes—thank you if you contributed.

2 Likes
12

Hi miohtama,

Really appreciate that you’re sharing more context to your vote here.

Glo Dollar Safety

You’re right that there are risk factors (such as regulatory), but incumbent stablecoin companies such as USDC are exposed to these risks too.

I’m really pleased to highlight our recent Bluechip stablecoin safety rating. Glo Dollar received an initial B rating, coming in only slightly lower than USDC (B+), and higher than other stablecoins with much higher market caps (USDT, FDUSD, FRAX, …). Newer protocols aren’t always riskier than established ones.

Stablecoin Ecosystem Safety: Stablecoin Diversity

The Ethereum ecosystem depends on centralized stablecoins as DEX liquidity hubs, on-chain reserve assets, and DeFi collateral. Over 92% of centralized stablecoins are managed by two companies: Circle and Tether.

We need more Stablecoin Diversity to make Ethereum more resilient, and we think that Glo Dollar is a strong minority stablecoin to move towards an ecosystem with healthier stablecoin diversification.

Shutter DAO 0x36’s Impact on Glo

Although it’s true that larger actors may have bigger reserves, they may also be less inclined to partner with smaller organizations like the Glo Foundation.

By swapping ~5% of Shutter DAO 0x36’s USDC holdings to USDGLO, our market cap would increase by over 10%. And Shutter DAO 0x36 would generate up to $10,000 in public goods each year—at no cost to the DAO.

Early adopters of Glo Dollar have an outsized impact on potential public goods funding. By holding Glo Dollars today, you’re 1. generating public goods funding directly, and 2. help us get the ball rolling (prove our concept, increase our reach, and ultimately enable mass adoption of Glo Dollar).

3 Likes
13

I 100% agree with @miohtama for this proposal. I will against for right now.