Hi all. This is a request regarding BeamAssets. Running this service costs money and bills need to be paid from time to time. We’re not Bank of Duck and can’t print money. This is a request for funding the maintenance costs through the treasury.
With the current setup the total annual costs are 170 USD per year.
Hi, we will of course cover it. I will check with Amir when we can do the vote.
BIP#: <# to be assigned>
Title: Funding for BeamAssets maintenance costs
Author(s): beamassets
Contributors: -
Tags: Funding request
Type: General BIP
Status: <Assigned by BIP Facilitator>
Date Proposed: <2024-10-16>
Date Ratified:<yyyy-mm-dd>
Funds for costs related to BeamAssets
Hi all. This is a request regarding BeamAssets. Running this service costs money and bills need to be paid from time to time. We’re not Bank of Duck and can’t print money. This is a request for funding the maintenance costs through the treasury.
With the current setup the total annual costs are 170 USD per year.
yes
Solves the problem of having to pay the bills out of pocket
Why you can’t charge users, even just a token amount?
I can’t agree to 100% funding if no attempts are made to be financially independent.
Let me start my answer with some questions.
How big is the Beam ecosystem? How many things have been build by independent and unaffiliated volunteers so far? Would it be a significant loss for Beam if BeamAssets would not exist?
When you look at the original Beam DEX interface without BeamAssets, do you think the user experience is on par with what people coming from Ethereum et al would expect? Is the user experience of the vanilla Beam DEX up to today’s standards?
I think it is abundantly clear that without BeamAssets, Beam would be a lot weaker.
Also BeamAssets has the only blockchain explorer that consistently worked when both the “official” explorer and the “community” explorer were out of service for months on end.
So why not charge for it?
Monetizing would be an option if Beam was a thriving ecosystem with lots and lots of users.
Understand, the first and foremost point of building BeamAssets was to fill in a missing component to make the DEX usable.
But for now it is just voluntary work which was done FOR FREE. Even just following up on infrastructure subscriptions and making sure that everything keeps running is work as well.
When executing a trade in BeamAssets, it asks you if you want to donate I think it was 0.25%(@BeamAssets please correct me if I’m wrong). That is definitely an attempt to be financially independent.
Absolutely, BeamAssets is a vital part of the Beam ecosystem.
Fair enough. I’m not thinking somehow you’re going to be killing it on day one. However, I believe all treasury requests, without exception, must start with a healthy incentivized mindset. This means fulfilling a real - not imaginary - need for a product or service in exchange for something else. If people are unwilling to eventually make that exchange then what do you really have?
I put it this way because I have watched other DAOs implode because those voting lack sound economic principles. I have seen this well intentioned idea of “laying essential foundations” limp on for many years and never recovering, constantly claiming, “our time is justified and success imminent”. These leechers thrive in an uncompetitive environment. Not at all suggesting you’re a leecher! but simply explaining how poor incentives multiply. People love “free” without understanding there is ALWAYS something on the other side.
In any event, good luck!
I am 100% for the DAO funding this. Without much hesitation.
BeamAssets is a very good product, which fills a gap that no other product from core or from community does. It’s not only an explorer, but also a chart and price analysis tool. And an alternative frontend for the Beam DEX. It’s admirable. And people use it and like it.
Moreover, it is made by a community member, and that’s exactly what Beam needs: More community builders!
Also, 170 USD / year is really not much at all. The real cost of this service is the time the dev spent building it. And they never asked for a penny for that time. They are only asking for the very practical costs of the infrastructure.
Lastly… let’s have a DAO vote at last! This one is a good one to have. Really, it has been so long since the last votes, that even the concept of the BeamX DAO voting is fading, and with it the only reason the BEAMX coin has to even exist…
Now I’m confused. If it’s “only 170 USD” then why bother voting, you just make the donation yourself, or crowdfund, and it’s done. Or is it just easier to spend someone elses money?
Sorry if that comes off a bit blunt but sometimes I’m not very diplomatic. If it helps, let me make a pledge of 30 USD if we collectively reach the 170 USD target. If the diehards here can’t raise this small amount then I rest my case, there is no real demand or motivation.
Seems to me, crowd funding would be a better dapp than voting to spend against others will.
Of course we could just pay it and done, but why not make a little DAO vote out of it?
The 170 USD are paid by us personally, not the treasury.
because it’s not your money, it’s easy to spend money that’s not yours, that’s how daos brwak, no pain no gain.
You need real skin in the game, that’s why I put my money where my mouth is by pledging 30 USD. Who else is brave enough, let’s sort out the walkers and talkers.
“because it’s not your money”, please read what I wrote above:
And as @dbadol said, @BeamAssets could ask for much more.
Okay, I thought this was going to be a dao proposal because, obviously, that would not be your money.
It is a DAO proposal, the funds just dont come from the treasury.
where they come from?
As I’ve said two times above, the 170 USD are paid by us personally.
Of course, this small amount could be paid with just a few donations! But that’s not really the point here, I think.
As of today, the voting part of the BeamX DAO is basically unused. We did three or four votes at the beginning, and then nothing else. Some BIPs where proposed, but since the vote submission is still very much centralized, nothing was done from them.
Today, the funding mechanisms of the DAO are working very well (as can be seen in an explorer, most Beam DeFi dApps are paying a small fee to the DAO treasury from their activity) but the human part of the DAO (the BIP discussions, the voting, the decisions, etc.) is basically zero. That’s a pity. And the price decline of the BeamX governance token is a direct consequence of it.
Images below show an example of DApps sending fees to the DAO (the “Deposit” lines), and the current holdings of the DAO treasury.
BeamAssets is a well known and appreciated community development, and their needing a funding (however small) can be a good opportunity to revive a bit the DAO voting part. That part is the interesting challenge, imo.
Yes, the usual thing in such cases is to vote to spend the treasury money. But we could also just vote to formally confim the community support towards a given project. We could even say that yes, the DAO treasury will pay for those expenses, but then allow donations to be done directly to the DAO vault (that’s already possible in CLI)! That would not be yet the “Crowdfunding DApp” we need, but it would be a pretty cool thing to do, I think. Donations would be visible, yet anonymous!
I guess the idea of passing this as a DAO vote is not going to be a good one. Because DAO votes are simply not happen.
What about simply making a campaign on TG and X for people to send some funds to a BeamAssets.beam address (or similar)? The amount we are talking about is small, it will be quickly covered and it does at least give us an opportunity to have a small community crowd funding session…
