VDP-133 - retroactive compensation for VitaDAO contributors to VDP-16/Korolchuk/VITA-FAST

Proposals
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TLDR: This proposal provides retroactive compensation for VitaDAO contributors to VITA-FAST. This is both to reward effort that went into making VITA-FAST possible and also to allow the VitaDAO contributors to continue to contribute to the project by voting with their tokens.

Team: @timrpeterson, @FanONegative, @alexdobrin

Background: Like with the launching of VitaDAO and the $VITA token, the Korolchuk project and $VITA-FAST was a collective effort by many people over many months and in some cases years. Below is a list of VITA-FAST contributors. The main activities in getting VITA-FAST to launch were sourcing, shepherding, reviewing, awareness, and administrative. Many people did multiple of these activities but their main activity is highlighted.

Big picture: Funding projects is key to VitaDAO’s mission, but advancing the funded projects is key to growing the value of VitaDAO. Therefore, for each project having the proper incentives to grow the project is critical. This proposal provides a first example for a project that went from IP-NFT to IPT. Other projects may have different allocations but in general the idea is that the incentives should be modest yet still enough to get people motivated to create the best outcomes for VitaDAO.

A subsequent proposal will outline incentives for future VitaDAO contributors to contribute to VITA-FAST.

Proposal: This proposal seeks the approval of the VitaDAO to allocate 2.5% of the total supply of $VITA-FAST tokens to the list of contributors indicated below. These tokens are considered fully vested. However, they will be locked such that one can only sell 10% per month from the date of the proposal passing.

Conflict of interest: On the on-chain vote (Snapshot), these contributors can not vote in favor of their own compensation on this proposal. However, they can vote “abstain” such that the vote reaches quorum. On this off-chain vote (here on Discourse), the listed contributors can vote “agree” as the point of the poll below is only for whether or not the proposal advances to the on-chain vote.

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  • Agree
  • Revisions Requested (Detail in Comments)
  • Disagree
0 voters
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One consideration is to make some requirement in the vesting about voting on the project. However, as not all people might consider themselves qualified to vote, this would seem to penalize them unfairly. Therefore, I left it simple especially considering the relatively modest allocations involved.

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Would incl. Benji too

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He is being compensated as the project lead but I agree if he wouldn’t have been he would still deserve tokens. Anyone else?

1 Like
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I agree that individuals who contributed to VITA-FAST should receive compensation for value-added! VDP 100 states “VitaDAO Dealflow WG will receive 5%, vested over 4 years, 1 year cliff. Vesting period to incentivize long-term success of the project. This must first be approved by Newcastle.” Is this 2.5% separate from this 5%?

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Good question. No, it’s the same 5%. Dealflow people aren’t the only people who contributed so the list reflects that. That we are only at 2.5% now should allow for the community to surface others like Benji who should receive compensation.

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I’d advocate for a greater allocation for Sebastian. Sourcing needs to be compensated more and we would never have had the opportunity without him. He also has been a massive asset to the project and has given really valuable connections, including to Nick Camps, our contract medicinal chemist. His value add cannot be understated enough and I would advocate he gets 2-3x what he is allocated here.

2 Likes
8

I am slightly opposed to this proposal and how it is structured. While I agree that it makes sense to reward sourcerers on a deal basis ideally, when this deal was sourced no IPT existed and all contributors were well compensated via VITA and USDC. To demand to now additionally be compensated after the success is a form of double dipping for me.

  1. Paying retroactive rewards when a project is successful sets a bad precedent, especially if the reward is unvested. How do VITA-FAST holders benefit from a retroactive dilution that adds no further value?

Imagine for example if a startup has an advisor and that advisor is paid in cash. Then at a later stage the startup is successful and now the advisor comes back and demands to be paid in equity at the new valuation of the startup despite not having added any value to its continued success.

  1. All individuals listed above received salaries in the $100,000s of thousands in VITA. Tim, Alex or Todd for example received the equivalent of $1m in VITA over this period. Sebastian was continuously paid in USDC ranging from $5,000-$10,000 per month. Project sourcerers also receive VITA. (These are guestimates and actual amounts may differ)

  2. Individuals listed above could have simply contributed in the initial auction, or they could today swap their own VITA holdings into VITA-FAST as I have personally done, or as Molecule has done.

  3. Molecule itself took absolutely no fee for the work to create and promote the VITA-FAST IPT. This was more than 3 months of work from multiple team members with costs well estimated at over $200,000. Should Molecule therefore also receive an additional retroactive reward?

However, rewarding continuous participation in the project to make it successful is highly desireable and I highly welcome the initiative. Therefore, I would support this proposal if it is revised:

A) Individuals listed above have clear deliverables for continuous future support that is measurable
B) All tokens received are vested for the duration of the support and cannot be sold
C) Retroactive awards for past support are only awarded for clear quantifiable outputs that were done outside of the context of their duties as defined in point 1). Individuals should submit these claims to receive the awards.

Long live VITA

2 Likes
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Its good points Benji. We can bump Sebastian up for the final proposal.

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Thanks Paul. There’s several helpful suggestions here that we will incorporate in a revised version. I’ll take your three main points below.

A) Individuals listed above have clear deliverables for continuous future support that is measurable

I’ve updated the table to add a column to show which contributors will need to provide future support. Not everyone should be expected to provide future support. Not all contributors are the same. VitaDAO should allow for many types of contributions. Some short term, some longer term. Take for example, sourcing. As @benji rightly mentions sourcing is essential. Without it the project would have never existed. Sometimes, the sourcer, in this case Sebastian, will contribute continuously whereas other times it will truly be a one-off contribution. It’s not practical to divide up Sebastian’s contribution to say “okay, 2500 is for sourcing the project, 500 for sourcing the med chem and both are fully vested, whereas 2000 is locked up and you need to continue to provide X, Y, Z support to earn that”. If we impose this level of granularity on everyone, it would unduly burden all those involved. Considering the relatively modest funds at stake IMO this proposal seems a good compromise between being not overly onerous on anyone who wants to contribute (and VitaDAO personnel who have to account for it) while still having clear expectations on what it takes to obtain tokens.

B) All tokens received are vested for the duration of the support and cannot be sold

Again, in my view not all contributors are the same. This proposal is a general compromise on how to account for several different contribution types.

Regarding your point about VITA-FAST holders benefitting from these retroactive payments, my quote above addresses this. Many of these people will use their allocations to vote on future proposals. But, future support shouldn’t be required of everyone. Again, many different contribution types should be encouraged. People who disagree can vote against the proposal.

C) Retroactive awards for past support are only awarded for clear quantifiable outputs that were done outside of the context of their duties as defined in point 1). Individuals should submit these claims to receive the awards.

Another good suggestion. I’ve added a column to the table to highlight the specific contributions each person made.

Additional comments:

These people did work for the project. They shouldn’t have to buy tokens for work they performed.

Molecule should make a proposal to the VitaDAO community on this if it feels this way. This is VitaDAO’s proposal for its own contributors.

This proposal was approved as part of VDP-100 when the VitaDAO community voted to fractionalize/IPT the Korolchuk project. As @sarahfriday noted, 5% of VitaDAO’s VITA-FAST share was specified for VitaDAO contributors. Moreover, there has been broad agreement for a long time that people should be incentived to advance individual projects. This was originally outlined in the VDP-26 Dealflow Incentives proposal that also passed. What was missing from both VDP-100 and VDP-26 is the specific quantities of the incentives and which people should receive them. This proposal addresses that.

1 Like
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agree think fair points, there is prob a middle ground, where those who have contributed the most to this project, while not having been similarly compensated should get some tokens, but I think given the current price the amounts should be re-evaluated as its otherwise quite steep compensation imo

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@vincent Understand the sentiment but think it’s better to think in percentage terms. 5% was allocated according to VDP-100. Even with bumping Benji and Sebastian up we will be below that. On a percent basis these are fairly small incentives for the work compared to other VitaDAO and broader DeSci tokenomics (~50 hours in my case over the last 2+ years). Most of these people were involved when the value of the project was $0. They were essential for getting to launch and in many cases still contribute to the project.

1 Like
13

Tbh think at current prices its just too high given their was generous compensation by the DAO for it, especially on things like artwork etc we shouldnt pay additionally - but rather conserve the vita-fast and provide further liquidity for example to get the sustainable funding loop closed of using the proceeds to fund further research

I’m all for giving some retroactively to the most crucial contributors, but needs to make sense from all the other incentives that people received for that work, and be reduced by like 2-3x given the price imo

1 Like