My Experience With ApeCoin Proposals

Over this past week, I received a message asking about my experiences with ApeCoin DAO and the proposal process. In this article, I want to share more!

My quick tips for new proposals:

• For the idea stage: have members active on the official forums
• For the draft stage: longer proposals look better on paper
• For the questions stage: longer draft = more questions

My proposal for Benji Bananas is still in process. I’ve delayed it purposely to acquire more votes before sending it to a snapshot vote. My strategy has been to network with many people to gather feedback and support for allocating money into the liquidity pool of ApeCoins first play-to-earn game.

A company that has existing customers and reputation doesn’t need to employ my same delay strategy. Ultimately, my proposal will soon go to snapshot voting.

During the idea stage, this is what happened:

• I was the only advocate on the forums for the idea
• I received private message with support but no public
• For 7 days, I returned to add more information

Ideally, a company or group can have multiple team members and community involved in this 7 day discussion. This would help get support for the idea faster.

During the draft stage, I wrote too much:

• The proposal draft was written to be 4 pages long
• Within 7 days of submission, I received many questions
• I wrote TOO much and some of the questions were difficult

A short proposal is easy for voters to turn down; A long proposal creates many questions. There is a happy middle, and it is possible to “say too much,” in these.

These are the main questions I received:

1. Will the legal and security audit reports be made available prior to funding the project? If the legal or security audit report come back with problems, is the Foundation expected to not go forward with this proposal?
2. What is the distribution/earning mechanism? For example, how much ApeCoin will be rewarded if the user spends 1 hour today on the game? Will the mechanism be posted publicly for transparency purpose?
3. The AIP draft states that it is estimated that the project can increase the ApeCoin holder count by more than 100,000 to 500,000+ users. How did the team arrive this estimate?
4. The AIP draft states that the DAO will vote on the fund allocation to be made to both new and existing games. How frequent should new AIPs regarding this be expected to come in for voting?
5. What is the expected timeline to spend these funds?

6. Is the ApeCoin allocation to Animoca for Benji Bananas directly or any game under the Animoca brand?

7. If Benji Bananas, is the earning mechanism the same as above or will it be different?

8. If other games are involved, will legal and security audits be required and contingent for funding?

There were additional questions asked. In my first draft, I wrote TOO MUCH and my second draft is much slimmer. Adding too many details raises additional questions.

Additionally, I’d like to talk about the general ApeCoin DAO community. There are currently 3 unofficial discords, each with different moderators who have different agendas. Some of these discords have only large holders, some only small holders. There are hundreds of apes in each of these. I’m unsure if getting their support is required to pass an AIP, but it surely would help.

Many of these groups are not active on the forums. They make decisions based on what is being talked about on their discord. Largely they are blind to the events that happen on the forums, until members begin to talk about things or an item goes to snapshot voting. A recent AIP-29 for a company called Ape Drops went unseen by them until snapshot announcement.

I think that a snapshot vote can be successful without engaging with these unofficial discord groups. Ideally being on both discord and the forums could help an AIP get passed easier. Most voters won’t see an AIP idea until it becomes a snapshot vote, which could be a good or bad thing depending on the particular initiative being promoted. Sometimes less publicity might be better.

In closing, I’d like to say that game allocations and grants are a great way to distribute ApeCoin from the treasury. I believe it is the best use of the funds and putting them into the hands of capable game developers to be distributed or act as a liquidity pool for other tokens is a smart move. We may even see grants for development within Yuga Lab’s upcoming Otherside game.

Currently ApeCoin forum activity is very low. A majority of influencers and voters are not engaged on the forums. Daily views on topics are low and there is an opportunity for proposals to easily get through the 7 day idea window. That could change in the future, until then, its recommended that AIP proposers bring team members and supporting voices to the forums.