Distributing G$ to stakers is contradicting the goal and spirit of G$.
The reason for the house of alignment is for the community to start funding real projects and businesses that use the G$ token.
The more businesses use the G$ token then the value of G$ will rise which is the ultimate benefit for G$ holders.
I see your point, and we agree: the ultimate goal is the commercial adoption of G$. But let’s be practical: for those companies to operate successfully on Celo, the final contract must first secure community approval by attracting the historic quorum of GOOD. The only way to achieve this is for the contract design to operate on a truly significant scale that recognizes that backing in a strictly proportional manner via code. A marginal or symbolic setup won’t move the needle for key accounts. Initially, I was inclined to vote in favor to move things along quickly, but after analyzing Sam M. words, I realize that my future support must be much more cautious and contingent on a fair balance. If we want consensus to work and the migration to be approved, the final development must reflect the true magnitude of the historic governance being mobilized.
Hello, I respectfully disagree with your argument. I believe you’re misunderstanding GoodDollar’s founding purpose and applying a logic that, while sounding good in theory, is financially unsustainable and dangerous for the community. Let me explain why.
The spirit of G$ is UBI, not being a venture capital firm. GoodDollar’s primary objective has always been to provide a decentralized Universal Basic Income. Diverting funds from the treasury, the House of Alignment, to finance external projects or startups turns GoodDollar into a business accelerator, betraying its mission. Community funds should be preserved to sustain UBI and reward those who maintain the network, not to be used as a venture capital fund.
The principle of skin in the game must be applied: people should buy G$ with their own money. If a project truly believes in the future of G$, let them demonstrate their conviction by buying G$ on the open market with their OWN money. The DYOR (Do Your Own Research) and skin-in-the-game principles apply perfectly here. If they risk their capital, they’ll work twice as hard to make the token rise and thus recoup their investment. If we give them G$ from the start, we’re removing all the risk. This creates a huge moral hazard: if they fail, the community loses money; if they succeed, they take all the profit. That’s not alignment, it’s a disguised subsidy.
Giving away G$ creates selling pressure, not real value. Your logic that more use equals more value sounds nice, but in practice it’s an illusion. If we give G$ to a project, the first thing they’ll do is sell it on the market to pay for servers, salaries, and marketing. This massive selling pressure dilutes the value for all current holders. On the other hand, if the project has to buy G$ on the market to operate, it generates real and organic buying pressure. That’s the only thing that truly raises the price and benefits the entire community. Funding with free tokens is the exact opposite: you penalize holders to provide liquidity to external parties.
Stakeholders are the foundation, not external projects. You prefer to give G$ to external entrepreneurs who haven’t demonstrated loyalty, instead of rewarding the stakers themselves who lock up their liquidity and secure the network. Stakeholders are the core of the protocol. Distributing G$ to them strengthens the community and keeps the circulating currency within the ecosystem. Penalizing our believers to fund outsiders whose reliability is uncertain is a strategic error.
Alignment isn’t subsidies, it’s mutual commitment. If we truly want to align projects, let’s use intelligent mechanisms: projects should lock up, that is, stake G$, to access integrations, visibility, or tools within the ecosystem. That’s true alignment: we’re all rowing in the same direction with shared economic interests. Direct aid only creates dependency and speculation.
In conclusion, GoodDollar’s community funds are sacred and are destined for the UBI. Funding projects with free tokens is unsustainable, inflationary, and contrary to the spirit of GoodDollar.
And what do users receiving UBI do with the G$? they don’t sell them?
History is history what’s important is the future what matters is the present
You’re right about that.
Sirpy, thank you for your response. I’m going to address each of your points because I think you’re mixing concepts and justifying an unnecessary risk to the community.
Regarding your question: “Don’t UBI users sell G$?” Yes, of course they do. That selling pressure is completely unavoidable because it’s the heart of the project: providing people with a basic income. It’s a necessary cost, accepted since GoodDollar’s inception. But there’s a huge difference between that and us, as a community, voluntarily and avoidably adding MORE selling pressure. If we already know that UBI generates an outflow of tokens into the market, the last thing we should do is duplicate that problem by giving away more G$ to entrepreneurs who will also need to sell to pay for servers, salaries, and marketing. You’re proposing adding a second layer of selling pressure on top of what we already have, and that only accelerates the token’s dilution. We shouldn’t add more selling pressure in a “project launcher” activity when the selling pressure for UBI is already a necessary evil.
Regarding your Gardens example, you say that 1 G$ is given as a reward for every 5 or 10 X that the community holds in treasury. The logic sounds good, but the problem is precisely that free G$ reward. If a community wants the incentive, they’ll have to buy 5 or 10 X on the open market. That purchase generates the real, organic demand we all want to see. Giving them an additional 1 X reward only dilutes the value for everyone else and partially negates the positive effect of that purchase. We could offer the incentive without the extra G$, or better yet, the benefit could be visibility, integrations, or tools, but not free tokens. There’s no need to give away G$ to incentivize purchases; the very mechanism of having to stake or lock G$ to access the rewards already generates the buying pressure you’re looking for.
Regarding your assertion that we should be a positive and democratic “venture capital” approach, therein lies the most serious flaw in your argument. The money in GoodDollar’s treasury is not a venture capital fund. It’s the financial cushion intended to sustain UBI. Although decisions are made democratically, the risk remains entirely collective. If the chosen project fails, the lost money belongs to the entire community, and that loss directly impacts the ability to provide UBI in the future. Profits, on the other hand, would go to the entrepreneurs and their teams. Socializing losses and privatizing profits isn’t alignment; it’s a terrible financial strategy. Democracy doesn’t eliminate financial risk; it simply distributes it among more people.
Furthermore, saying that the only way to make UBI sustainable is by generating profit, and that’s why we must be venture capital, is a false dichotomy. G$'s profitability must arise organically, not through subsidies. If a business truly needs G$ to operate, it should buy it on the market with its own capital. That’s the only way for the ecosystem to be sustainable in the long term and for the price to truly rise. Giving away tokens creates artificial dependency and a utility that deflates as soon as the giveaways run out. Projects funded with free tokens don’t have the same incentive to innovate and be efficient as those that risk their own money.
In short: selling pressure for UBI is inevitable, and we accept it because it’s the lifeblood of the project. But we have no obligation to add more voluntary selling pressure with a project launch program. That only accelerates dilution, penalizes stakers and holders who genuinely believe in GoodDollar, and jeopardizes the capital allocated to Basic Income. Let’s prioritize UBI, which is our raison d’être, and let projects prove their worth by buying G$ on the market like any other investor. That’s the real test.
Thank you @Gooddollar2020 for your proposal and for everyone else engaging.
I understand that redirecting protocol funds for any purpose beyond UBI is a difficult decision to make and one that carries a heavy weight in the community. The design decisions that I proposed were not taken lightly and were made with the intention of bringing GoodDollar closer to our vision of more sustainably funding UBI in the future.
In order to be more sustainable, G$ needs to prove real-world utility for individuals, businesses, and communities, otherwise people will not buy G$. The reality is that this real-world utility and demand does not come from the rewards for staking in the protocol alone, which in my opinion, would only further worsen the divide between large token holders in the system and everyone else (a financial inclusivity problem that GoodDollar was explicitly founded to solve). This is why we need G$ flowing to the businesses that will be using it to increase future, real demand for the token, which is the initial vision of the House of Alignment.
I understand and appreciate the concerns this structure creates around privatized profit and moral hazard, but this program is designed to be an experimental mechanism, with members held to strict reporting requirements and accountability criteria, and enforcement provided by future community voting. I believe this mitigates the risks we’re taking in order to start what I believe could be an important project in growing the economy on top of GoodDollar.
To continue the conversation, I just posted GoodDAO 2.0: GoodDollar Governance Re-Vision Update, which will hopefully bring some clarity to our evolving roadmap for GoodDAO 2.0. I really want to continue co-designing this with the community and will be hosting a community call on July 1 to discuss updates and the roadmap. Please RSVP to the call here: https://luma.com/rmydpm1w
I also welcome @Gooddollar2020 to discuss GIP-27, and @Gpalomino and @Eddie to bring your perspectives to the call so we can productively deliberate these issues further.
No selling pressure is not inevitable and what you said about gardens is illogical.
If there’s 5-10x G$ bought for every 1G$ distributed it the opposite of selling pressure. Its more demand.
If selling pressure is inevitable then so the end of G$ as project is inevitable.
The only way to make G$ survive is to develop G$ as a real alternative currency, used in a real economy. That is the vision and the only way forward.
The G$ you distribute as a reward ends up being sold on the market because projects also need liquidity to operate. So the net effect is that you’re introducing new tokens that dilute the value. You’re not creating value; you’re creating a cycle of dependency on subsidies.
The selling pressure for UBI isn’t inevitable if people can actually spend the G$ on goods and services they need. The problem isn’t the selling pressure itself, it’s the lack of real opportunities to spend G$. If UBI users have real-world ways to spend their G$, they don’t need to sell them en masse on the market. That’s the key point you’re overlooking.
GoodDollar should run a real-world education campaign so that providers of goods and services that people actually need receive G$ as a medium of exchange. Exactly. That’s the real solution. Instead of giving away G$ to entrepreneurs to create artificial projects, we should invest time, effort, and a small portion of the budget in training and outreach aimed at merchants, professionals, and small businesses. Teach them how to accept G$ as payment, show them how the wallet works, how to convert it to local currency if needed, and demonstrate that accepting G$ can attract new customers from the GoodDollar community.
That’s building a real economy, not subsidizing a patchwork economy. When a baker, a hardware store owner, a hairdresser, or a farmer voluntarily accepts G$ because they see the benefit, that’s where real demand is born. And that demand doesn’t depend on artificial incentives; it grows organically and sustainably. Furthermore, these merchants don’t need to sell the G$ immediately; they can accumulate it, use it among themselves, or convert it when it suits them. That’s the real economy you mention as a vision, and I agree with you that it’s the only way. But the method to get there isn’t giving away tokens; it’s educating and facilitating adoption.
I agree with you that the vision of G$ as a real alternative currency is the only long-term path. But I profoundly disagree with the strategy. You propose injecting capital into external projects to force utility. I propose educating the real world so that utility arises naturally and voluntarily. Education creates believers and committed users; subsidies create dependents and speculators. Education is a one-time expense that generates permanent benefits; subsidies are a recurring expense that generates perpetual dependency.
In short, we don’t need to be a venture capital firm. We need to be an educational movement that teaches the real world that G$ is a useful, easy-to-use currency that can improve people’s lives. That is true alignment and the only sustainable path. Invest in education, not subsidies.
Instead of spending G$ on projects that don’t directly help the poor people who need it, why not subsidize real businesses so they can offer discounts when customers pay with G$?
Obviously you didn’t read the gip-26 proposal and Sam’s replies.
The funds to project are not for their operation, it is to be distributed to users as incentives or to drive economic activity.
“GoodDollar should run a real-world education campaign” - The overhead of managing this is simply too big for the foundation. Such initiatives need to be decentralized. That’s why we are working on decentralizing the allocation of the UBI and DAO Treasury so such initiatives can come from different local communities. That’s exactly the purpose of the HOA and HOC
The questions raised in this thread — around staker incentives, bridge accessibility, and the long-term sustainability of the protocol — are central decisions. Today’s community call is an opportunity to present this proposal and continue this conversation in real time as a community.
Community Call — July 1 · 3 PM UTC
Register: https://luma.com/rmydpm1w