Brief analysis of Genesis for the uninitiated & the way forward: shall we vote?

Proposals
1

Hello Tribe & Project Team,

Since the genesis emotions have been running high and rightly so, as the real believers got a raw deal. However now it has been couple of days and the dust has settled so its about time we look at this with cooler heads. We all have some sort of opinion on what went wrong and how we can fix this. Other members have posted some very well thought ideas and the logical next step is to formalize things and find our way forward. Below i am providing my take on the whole situation.

SO What went wrong?
The mechanism although a great idea in theory wasn’t thought through. I am amazed that the team that planned to raise such a big amount hasn’t run enough simulations for various scenarios. I do not doubt their intentions but lets be honest, mistakes have been made. Were they under staffed or lacked an outside perspective from someone who can speak about real crypto market scenarios? I am not sure but i am willing to put my faith in them, provided they commit to an open dialogue and present a clear path on how we are going to fix this.

As I said mistakes were made, simply tweaking few key things would have made a big difference and could have prevented this fiasco. Having said that, things are always easier in hindsight :). For example it would have been better to…

  • Not allow people to choose the ratio of pre-swap, i.e. everybody pre-swapped at 50:50. This would have avoided the dump.
  • Not raise more Ether once past a certain point, i.e. once the mathematical curve arrives a point where Fei reaches its maximum value, i.e. 1.01 USD than Genesis event should have ended with circa 110k ethers raised. This would have protected the real supporters who pre-swapped earlier from being over run my the whales who came in in last hours to change the whole dynamics of the genesis event. This would have also meant that genesis TRIBE was not over priced for the genesis pre-swappers.

Below i share with you some numbers, if the Genesis was conducted based on above mentioned principals.

  • Team would have still been able to raise a quite big amount of circa 220 million USD (110 ether with ether pegged at 2k USD) and Fei would have reached its optimum max value of 1.01 USD
  • Genesis TRIBE would have been priced @ 0.77 Fei to those who would have pre-swapped. Instead of around 4.36 Fei, which we all end up paying (I need to re-check this figure as it might be little lower).
  • The Bonus Fei would not have lost its significance. Instead of 158 Bonus TRIBE per Ether, which we end up getting, everyone would have got circa 900 bonus TRIBE for every Ether they committed. This would have been in addition to pre-swapped TRIBE.

As you can see sometimes less is more. There is a reason projects don’t do big public raises, as the value needs to be generated rather than accumulated from community. When such a huge raise is done, it brings with itself additional complications. What amazed me the most was how the team managed to not see this kind of scenario.

Now that i am done with the postmortem, we come to the problems facing us the TRIBE and this includes both the genesis supporters/investors and the Team ( i am looking at you - Joe, Seb and Brianna). I am not including the seed investors as i am not sure if this really matters to them but i hope it does.

Any how moving forward so now we have a situation whereby:

  • Our core product, Fei, doesn’t works as efficiently as it should and to an extent has been gamed by malicious actors.
  • Our core community, us the GENESIS TRIBE - the pre-swappers, end up having both barrels. Not only we paid almost 2x-3x the price of TRIBE compared to those who are now buying from the market at bargain basement prices but we continue to see value of our investment in both Fei and TRIBE dwindles down on an hourly basis as the speculators make hay gaming the loopholes in the protocol.

SO what Can be done now?
Well I am not a programmer but as an analysts i have some proposals> They might a little rough around the edges so please be patient :).

At first i believe for any good idea to work it should take care of all the stakeholders involved and it should be implementable. The key stakeholders at the moment are the TRIBE holders & the Team. Although we also need to keep an eye on the future so i would include early adopters of Fei and prospective investors in TRIBE. Hence my proposal will factor them in. I am proposing following course of action:

Priority Nr. 1: Adjust the Fei protocol.

  • Fix the loopholes in the protocol, making it bulletproof so it cannot be gamed by the bots or anybody else. If this means removing the buying rewards permanently than we should consider it. At the same time any changes to be done with minimum disruption to the working of the protocol in order to not loose further market confidence.
  • The selling penalty probably has to stay, as i am struggling to see how can it be possible to maintain the peg without it.
  • Recycling the selling burn back into the protocol in the form of rewards to the TRIBE holders or it can go in a fund, which can either increase the collateralization of the protocol or might be used to buy back and burn TRIBE from the market. This will create deflationary supply pressure on TRIBE over time enhancing the value of TRIBE.

Priority Nr. 2 - Find a way to compensate the GENESIS TRIBE holders, only the ones who pre-swapped during genesis. I propose:

  • Establishing genesis wallets who pre-swapped their Fei with TRIBE during genesis (irrespective of the percentage).
  • Doing an airdrop (or another mechanism) giving additional 2 TRIBES for every TRIBE they pre-swapped.
  • All these additional TRIBE tokens to be locked for first 6 months and after released on monthly basis for next 6 months to avoid the impact of people dumping this TRIBE in the market.

Priority Nr. 3 - Extending the use case of our eco system. In today’s day and age when investor are being seduced left right and centre with mouth watering defi offerings we cannot have a just a governance token which does not generates value. In order to stay relevant we need to ensure TRIBE remains relevant and attractive to future investors. Some ideas to start with:

  • Introduce amendments in protocol to make TRIBE valuable. Wwe need to find a way to connect some rewards than can be funnel through to the TRIBE holders, whether it is the form of very attractive staking rewards for providing liquidity On Fei platform/Uniswap, etc
  • As mentioned earlier, recycling the selling burn penalties towards a fund which can be used to buy and burn TRIBE to reduce its supply is another good option.
  • ??
  • ???

Priority Nr. 4: Some of these points can be used in priority 3 as well depending upon variety of factors.

  • Onboarding partners and forming alliances to increase use case for Fei
  • Exchange listings
  • Defi Pivot.
  • Burn some unused TRIBE
  • Perhaps expanding Tribal eco-system. May be we can be our own DEX aggregator with our own stable coin? This could be in the form a layer on top of existing DEXs or another option. This will make TRIBE one of the most valuable assets to hold in Defi spehere. Imagine the if we manage to do so by having our own decentralized stable coin that will form the oil that will grase the wheels of our eco-system by providing liquidity and TRIBE will sit on top of all this where all the value will be funneled to. We will become one of the main players in the market and would gibe MKR DAO and other similar project a run for their money.
  • Recruiting top talent from the cryptosphere to help the team achieve all what we discussed above.
  • Involving talented members from the community who can add value to the team and provide additional perspective.

OTHER RADICAL IDEAS (nuclear option):

  • If nothing works and the team fails to make Fei stable than we should consider pausing the protocol, which will eventually leads to to dilution of Fei. We should should use th collateral to buy back Fei from the market at current peg without burn penalties.
  • We rethink about the project as even after buying back we THE TRIBE holders will be sitting on a BIG pot of ETHER.

For now that is all i can think of!!

ATM we are in the middle of an amazing bullish market cycle that the world has ever seen but if we won’t pull together as ONE TRIBE, in the same direction, than nothing will change or improve.
Just spreading negativity and complaining wont solve anything. I have some request for my fellow community members.

  • Lets all discuss the options above and either accept them, amend them or come up with better/different ones. Lets do it together intelligently and constructively.
  • Lets all agree to give TEAM a fair chance (and time) to fix the issues that we all have noticed during last days without being on their case 24/7.
  • Lets keep the negativity to a minimum in disco, twitter and other public forums as by doing so we are not only hurting the project but also our own investment. I have raised some issues in discord myself but now that we have this forum set up lets keep the discussion related to next steps constructive.
  • Lastly this is for the team , ie. @ Joe, Seb & Brianna, we are ONE TRIBE, if you show us your willingness to learn from the mistakes, i am sure the community will be with you and support you. I am willing to do my part and i am hoping you are willing to do yours. If i can be of any help than don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Last but not the least, Please feel free to upvote if you agree with the proposal and/or post comments. So far there are enough discussions and proposal have been made by few of the Tribal members now we need to decide and move forward.

Thank You to all those who have read it so far, you are the real TRIBE!!

Onwards & Upwards.

37 Likes
2

Have any plan when BTC down??

4

Fei protocol derives its PCV from Ether not BTC but i get your point.

5

I am trying to stay positive and pragmatic. I believe the only way to improve the situation is by coming together and that also includes the Team as they are the only ones who can fix this. I am doing my part and i hope there will be enough of us to put this through for on-chain vote.

We also needs to engage the Team rather than just slant them as its not doing anybody any good. We had couple of days to vent out our disappointment but now its time to come together and move this thing forward.

5 Likes
6

Agree with this! I think it’s a great idea and community should be prioritized. You will not have loyalty or adoption if you don’t have a strong community backing it.

3 Likes
7

Thanks for your work. Very helpful for the community.

8

Very well thought out @AVM , you have my attention, and quite possibly my vote. I would like to add it is very important to incentivize LP PROVIDERS, one of which I am not currently. That being said, they should probably earn emissions from fees. With the money backing this protocol, the interest alone would be substantial. Why they are not using aave tokens I don’t know. One of the most important things here is definitely a positive feedback loop (CYCLE THE FEES BACK IN!) , the implementations are endless. But, my number #1 recommendation, put some of the ether into aave, there’s really no reason not to.

9

I like this proposal and support it overall.

I would move priority 4 to be priority 2. I think 1 and 4 directly relate to Fei’s ability to do the job it’s supposed to do and add value to the ecosystem.

I think the team should focus on those two things first and then reward people who have held Tribe since genesis and add value to holding Tribe.

I think moving 4 to be 2 also benefits long-term Tribe holders because the value of Tribe long-term depends on Fei’s success.

1 Like
10

Completely agree,

Focus must be on Fei ability to maintain peg and on showing support to LT tribe holders

11

AVM,

Great job summarizing the situation. Have the team reached out to you?

12

The priority should be to maintain peg and only that. If that is done the value for Tribe, etc. will all come rushing back and even go much much higher.

Though the above is an excellent review and proposal, it is too broad and focuses too much on Tribe token value alone. There is no Tribe token of any value without FEI and FEI holding its peg…

1 Like
13

You have to get all the incentives right for a protocol to work.

We should reward long term lock up of TRIBE. Introduce a staked TRIBE pool. Increase reward multiplier for longer lock up. Market buy some TRIBE with burn fees and burn the supply.

Same could be done for FEI when below peg. When below peg, allow locked FEI to earn rewards in TRIBE or portion of burn fees in FEI. Reduce rewards as distance from peg decreases.

14

I support it. However, it is unfair to give an airdrop to someone who has already sold Tribe. If you airdrop the pre-swapper to the person holding it so far, your sell volume will be much lower.

15

Thanks. Some interesting suggestions from you, i think once priority 1 is complete those can be incorporated in 3 & 4. However i am not sure if Ether can be detached from the protocol as this would under collaterize the protocol.

16

I think idea behind it was to form a starting point for the debate where we have everything summed up in one place. Of-course we can and should refine it and involved the team in discussion and once we have a refined proposal and there is enough traction behind it than it can be put on-chain for vote.

17

No. I haven’t heard from them yet. I understand they must be snowed under at this time trying to fix the vulnerabilities in the protocol so i am being patient but i am hoping they will find time to read it sooner rather than later so we can move this forward.

18

Thanks for the feedback. I agree the main focus at the beginning is to maintain the peg hence why it was written as priority 1, where by i wrote about stabilizing the Fei.

TRIBE and other aspects of the proposal should follow once priority 1 is implemented.

19

Fantastic summary. I agree to compensate the GENESIS TRIBE holders & only the ones who pre-swapped during genesis. Their IDO normalization did more damage than good.

1 Like
20

I fully agree with your thinking. You have my vote!

1 Like
21

Thanks for taking the time and writing out this post. I’m calling it a post because I don’t think it can qualify as a proposal as there are no clear action items. My biggest concern is alligned with yours and it is priority 1: fix the peg. There is no detailed way you are proposing to do that, so this cannot be a proposal that is voted on and later implemented because it is underspecified.

I am in slight disagreement with you regarding point 2 awarding early swappers. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I will express it anyway. I am not an early swapper. I was planning to be one but decided to wait and see how many people would swap, once we passed the SCALE and the pcv went parabolic it was obvious that swapping is a bad idea. No one was forced to preswap on the first hours minutes day of the genesis. That was just a bad call, I wouldn’t reward it.

I really.like the idea of recycling the burn fees and have mentioned it myself before as well. I would airdrop these fees on FEI holders adding upwards forces in hope to support the peg.

Once again, thanks for taking the time and writing a concise and systematic postmortem and outlining a way forward.