Hi all - thanks for the enthusiastic response here and in Discord - and thanks also for the critiques and requests for clarification, which are always welcome. I want to preface with the note that I (and the Anoma Foundation) will not be able to respond to all questions individually or immediately - there are a lot! In this response, I will cover questions raised by various folks that @Gavin has graciously summarized in this HackMD, organized under topical section headings.
Subcategory breakdowns
The first question in the HackMD (1a, 1b, 1c) asks for more detailed breakdowns of the “Early Core Contributors”, “Protocol maintenance, R&D, ecosystem, and community development”, and “Public allocations (future RPGF programs)” categories.
I will answer these in order:
- Early Core Contributors consists of allocations to individuals (mostly) and to a few organizations who have participated in many different parts of the process which brought Namada to where it is today, including design, development, testing, advice, and community support. This category includes allocations to over 200 individuals. This category does not include any organizational allocations to Heliax, Knowable, Luminara, or the Anoma Foundation - it does include allocations to individuals who are or have been members of those organizations, and also to individuals who have no association with them.
- Protocol maintenance, R&D, ecosystem, and community development includes a total of 17% of the supply, split between the Anoma Foundation (7.5%), Heliax (7.5%), and Knowable (2%).
- Public allocations (future RPGF programs) includes 16.3355%, split into categories for protocol development (5%) and general ecosystem development (11.3355%). The protocol development allocation is held by the AF. The general ecosystem development allocation is split exactly equally between the Anoma Foundation and Luminara.
The original blog post will be updated to include these details.
Why no vesting?
The first part of the second question in the HackMD (2a) asks why Namada does not have any vesting tokens, and about the relation with Anoma. Questions about vesting have also been raised in Discord and on Twitter - I think it’s the most popular question by far.
To put it directly: in my opinion, the system of vesting lockups - as it is practiced by crypto projects today - impairs the freedom of market participants, manipulates the price signal, and screws the public. In particular, I think the typical schedule of vesting lockups in recent “low float, high FDV” launches - usually a short cliff, followed by a few-year gradual unlock - specifically screws folks who join the project (and perhaps acquire some tokens) shortly after launch, who are presented with a price signal that does not reflect real market sentiment because a bunch of folks who might want to sell (e.g. investors), and who will definitely have the ability to sell in the future, do not have that ability now because of the lockups. I also think that vesting lockups - as practiced by crypto projects today - disadvantage the public in general, because in order to attempt to approximate the real market signal as a potential market participant, you must analyze exactly who might want to sell but be unable to, and this analysis is too complex and time-intensive for most public market participants to do.
I have explained my rationale in more detail here. To the best of my knowledge, this position is shared by @awa and @adrian. I do not think vesting lockups of this sort make sense for Namada, I do not think that they make sense for Anoma, and I do not think that they make sense for any crypto project today or in the future. This is not a popular position to hold these days, but it is mine.
I think it can also help to describe what a launch without vesting really looks like. Namada will have a free market launch - everyone will be able to express their preferences. If you want to sell, you can sell. If you want to buy, you can buy. If you think NAM is too expensive, then you have a wonderful opportunity to sell. If you think NAM is too cheap, then you have a wonderful opportunity to buy. Best of all, you’ll be able to do so with the confidence that the price signal is meaningful, because everyone with preferences is able to express them right here and right now.
NAM markets
The second part of the second question in the HackMD (2b) asks about providing liquidity to establish NAM markets.
This is not centrally coordinated, and I have no special information. Independent actors can make independent choices about how to participate in markets, using parts of their allocations if they so wish.
Namada & Anoma
The first two parts of the third question (3a and 3b) ask about the relationship between Namada and Anoma, and the relationship between Namada and the Anoma Foundation. I will break this down into a set of sub-questions:
What is the high-level relationship between Namada and Anoma, and Namada and the Anoma Foundation?
Namada is part of the Anoma ecosystem - and not just a part, but the critical piece of technology and the actual network that will allow users to make shielded transactions and pay freely, right now. The Anoma Foundation (and capital held by it) supports the Anoma ecosystem, including Namada.
Why has the foundation pursued both Namada and Anoma?
The foundation has pursued both Namada and Anoma in order to provide this shielded payment technology sooner rather than later, because we think it is critical to a free society and makes sense as an independent product. Payments have been the most obvious application of blockchains since Bitcoin, but payments require careful consideration of many aspects (e.g. seamless multi-asset support and data protection as a public good) that have not yet been combined together into a working product. For more details on why Namada exists and the product thesis behind it, check out this blog post.
What will the relationship between the Namada and Anoma protocols be in the future?
The Namada and Anoma protocols are cleanly abstracted (the trendy word these days is “modular”) technology stacks, which share certain basic components such as cryptographic libraries but are not tightly coupled to each other. The Namada protocol is optimized in order to provide this specific product (shielded payments) as best as possible, while the Anoma protocol - which is still a work in progress - is optimized for other, longer-term goals such as intent matching and heterogeneous trust. Heliax has finished designing and implementing the initial Namada protocol - which includes all key components to make shielded payments work as a product - but what happens to the Namada protocol in the future, including work done by Heliax or funded by the AF, will be driven by the community. We chose to cleanly abstract the protocols in order to maximize this freedom - all options are possible, it’s up to you!
Plans for future RPGF and protocol/R&D/community/ecosystem allocations
The last part of the third question (3c) asks about plans and timelines for the usage of the allocations under the “Protocol maintenance, R&D, ecosystem, and community development” and “Public allocations (future RPGF programs)”. I will split this question into two parts, one for each category.
Protocol maintenance, R&D, ecosystem, and community development
This category includes three recipients - the Anoma Foundation, Heliax, and Knowable. I cannot speak for Knowable (though I’m sure they have some exciting things planned!), so I’ll focus on the first two.
Personally, I think that there are a few critical features not yet included in the Namada software (or, frankly, any existing software, as far as I know) and a few critical wallets which should be prioritized:
- Private note retrieval with PIR and OMR, which allows clients to sync quickly and privately without a lot of network, storage, or compute resources (so e.g. this would make mobile wallets really fast).
- Easy multisignature creation and operation with FROST, which would allow shielded multisignature accounts. This requires not only the cryptographic bindings - which already exist - but more importantly, well-designed support across the product stack, so that users can easily coordinate to craft, review, sign, and broadcast transactions.
- A mobile wallet for iOS and Android which supports easy shielded multi-asset payments, shielded set rewards, and WeChat-like “scan to pay” UX.
- A desktop wallet (maybe in-browser) which supports complex payment flows with queuing, review, scheduling, and multi-stakeholder review, as required by e.g. companies to process salary or invoice payments.
However, there’s probably a lot I haven’t thought of here, and we’ve spent a while developing Namada “in the dark” without the ability to garner feedback from real users, and with the network launch this will finally become possible. The direction and prioritization of future research and development efforts coordinated and performed by the AF and Heliax will be driven by the community.
Public allocations (future RPGF programs)
This category includes two recipients - the Anoma Foundation and Luminara. I cannot speak for Luminara (though I’m sure they have some cool plans too!), so I’ll focus on the Anoma Foundation. The Anoma Foundation has a specific commitment to a shielded airdrop for ZEC holders, which I hope can happen as soon as possible - but we want to ensure that we’ve collected and addressed all feedback on the proposed protocol first. Beyond the shielded airdrop, I expect that the AF will develop programs to retroactively fund protocol, ecosystem, and community development work. Where best to focus those efforts will be determined by community input, network evolution, and coordination with other stakeholders - in particular Luminara and the network governance function itself.
Note also that - as stated in the blog post - Heliax and the AF are not eligible as recipients for any of these future RPGF programs.
Why discrete RPGF allocations?
The fourth question asks why the proposal includes discrete RPGF allocations, to be custodied by the AF and Luminara, instead of simply allocating these tokens to the on-chain PGF account.
The simple answer is: variety and diversity of funding sources in the short term. Namada is a new network, and all of the various governance structures have yet to work themselves out and demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses. No funding source or governance structure is perfect - different ones have different advantages and disadvantages - and I think a plurality of options is more likely to work out well for the future of the network than a single one.
With this proposal, at network launch, there would be three potential sources for RPGF allocations:
- Anoma Foundation (fixed amount)
- Luminara (fixed amount)
- Namada governance (unbounded amount)
We could have alternatively proposed to allocate these tokens to the on-chain PGF account, but the on-chain PGF account can mint arbitrary amounts of tokens anyways (subject to approval by network governance) - it doesn’t need an initial allocation in order to do so, and an initial allocation doesn’t give it any more power than it already has. Allocating to specific entities creates strictly more options for receiving RPGF when you contribute to Namada.
That said, the Anoma Foundation and Luminara only have fixed allocations, which will eventually be used up, so I expect that in time, the ultimate source of RPGF will be network governance itself - as it should be.