Placeholder for redacted proposal
via recent discussion in sns i am voting in favour if we have one month tranches which cover salary for 1 contributor with month report at end. otherwise i do not support. please also explain reserve how works and how long time for launch.
1 Like
We are working on a more detailed plan for Reserve module development which will be shared before discord voice meeting planned for Tuesday July 9th @ 15:00UTC.
Most of the discussion regarding the reserve design has been been taking place in SNS chat. For further details past the brief I share here please reach out in that channel or telegram.
In a nutshell the Reserve is a multi-collateral multi-stablecoin system using MakerDao as inspiration. Major design differences are in the handling of liquidations and sourcing of market price for collateralization ratios.
There are other features such as Onomy Bonds which are fungible interest bearing instruments that are minted and redeemed at the Reserve. This is akin to Dai savings but tokenized.
The readme to the GitHub repo for Reserve development also has some additional details, but this is WIP: Reserve GitHub
The bonds branch of the Reserve GitHub is where current work is taking place: Reserve Github - Bond Branch
As the Founding Team of Onomy outside of Charles, we will unanimously vote No with Veto on this proposal. Our goal is to provide a full, unadulterated picture of the situation at hand whilst being objective. We will break down our response into 3 main parts:
- Historical Context
- Our feedback and questions on Aionic Systems Proposal
- An Alternate Path for Exploration
1. Context Setting
Aionic Systems (AS) has repeatedly misrepresented the state of Onomy Protocol’s core products and functionality. Despite claims that these were completed as early as 2022, it took an additional two years to launch even a rudimentary version of the Onomy Exchange. During these times, he routinely pressured marketing and business development teams to push partnerships on the pretenses of false timelines. Notably, the model created using the TLA+ specification built with Informal Systems was effectively thrown out, as Aionic Systems decided to change the AMM model and start from scratch years after ONEX logic was asserted as complete. As was witnessed, the new logic Aionic Systems wrote - outside of the well-marketed version designed with Informal Systems - carried many bugs and a major exploit enabling the draining of liquidity.
Any attempts at obtaining documentation from Charles, or simple questions of progression, were met with disdain. We stepped up to understand mechanism logic as best we could to write documentation on behalf of Charles who had refused to write them. We also took responsibility - and gladly led - infrastructure set-up and hosting, nodes, product design and front-end development, marketing, business development, integrations, trade wars, incentives, Zealy, IBC paths, relayers, and actually lifting the ONEX chain on both testnet and mainnet - pushing Interchain Security (ICS) into production with coordination amongst all validators.
The eventual release of the Onomy Exchange, although delayed by two years, revealed a product unable to compete in the DEX space. Significant changes from the original design were made, and feedback from internal team members was largely ignored. Weekly team meetings provided no accountability for the development progress from Aionic Systems.
Repeated public deadlines were set by Aionic Systems and subsequently missed, with zero communication towards the rest of the team on timelines changing, leading to increased efforts in marketing, design, and business development based on false assurances that logic was completed and products were ready for integration, alongside community turmoil. The achievements made on these assurances created the growth of community, liquidity, and value for NOM. Routinely, exchange deposits were made from Aionic Systems controlled wallets during these periods of time followed by some delay in one way or another of the previously made assurance.
This table showcases the NOM sold out of proposal tokens managed by Charles. A total of roughly $1.1M since May 2023. $275,413.33 is an exact sum of deposits into the team wallet, covering 4 team members, the Defiants community managers, and misc expenses. The remaining $823,136.85 that AS kept is an estimate calculating the proceeds from the monthly vwap of each individual month multiplied by the amount of tokens sold in that month. We estimate that Charles has netted $800K+ from this address onomy17mvfw0vu9fpwnnhykqmrg4dsfjwgxumytg9jjz during the time range in which Onomy product logic was either represented as done (ready for front-end integration) or a timeline was set that was never met.
2. Hostility and Toxic Environment
Onomy scaled up to 25+ core team members when it was starting out, but all who were directly managed by Aionic Systems have left, citing concerns with the founder - toxic environment, anti-innovation behavior, inability to explain the design of the products, unwillingness to demonstrate product demos, hostility and verbal abuse, and more.
The screenshot below is an example of a daily occurrence, directed towards every single team member, day in and day out. Particularly, any time questions of progress came up or what we can help with was met with him stating he does not work for us, he is an independent contributor, and to do it ourselves (to put it nicely).
Upon users facing trouble with any of the products, Aionic Systems would say "it’s not my job to fix things, and I’m too busy on other development matters”, and have junior team members fix, without offering any guidance, and without describing the other development matters he was busy with. Shortly thereafter, we’d be sent pictures of exotic resorts, watches, and designer clothing.
The Onomy Mainnet, a lot of the testnets, and perhaps most importantly, the launch of Onomy’s first consumer chain, the Onomy Exchange (and the subsequent product release) were done by other contributors, without guidance from AS. Upon seeing time and time again that AS lacks the development proficiency to run a project of Onomy’s scale, we’ve been onboarding additional contributing teams through governance grants et al, which are able to run bridges, launch mainnets, and handle validator operations. This was a direct effort of the founding team (Excluding Charles) to assure sustainability of Onomy by removing any mission-critical tasks from AS.
In fact, mid-Onomy Exchange launch, perhaps one of the 3 most important events Onomy has had, Aionic Systems left mid-call to attend to other, non-urgent personal matters. The rest of the team was shocked, to say the least. Furthermore, lifting the infrastructure necessary was a result of other team members learning and taking lead from Aionic Systems, as he would give dates, start, stop, then disappear for days at a time.
For 3 years, we’ve ramped up marketing, closed the very best partnerships in the industry, lined up dozens of integrations across the board, only to keep postponing in partner groups and have the momentum die out naturally. There’s only so much you can market for years without any product being available. Not once during these 3 years have we been able to have a constructive conversation with Charles, without it turning sour within minutes, despite the rest of the team always collaborating and furthering Onomy’s mission.
Aionic Systems has significantly damaged team synergy and relationships through this unprofessional behavior. The individual in charge has cursed at team members for requesting progress updates, addressing the project’s functionality, or imagining more novel solutions to technical problems we were facing. In addition, a common strategy in the face of peril (also known as funding running out), would be to start cursing at BD & marketing to do their jobs, despite having no product to do their jobs for, and despite there being a community of 60K+ nomads, top tier backers & partners lined up for product release.
The “technical” cofounder has also exhibited hostility towards VCs & integration partners, damaging existing and potential partnerships. This toxic behavior has created a hostile work environment, impeding collaborative progress and undermining team morale. The BD side of Onomy has made a conscious decision to no longer have Aionic Systems on partner calls or in Telegram Groups, as many engagements including him would lead to partnership ruin.
3. Achievements we led (with minimal to no involvement by Charles):
- CDL Incubator Completion
- Interchain Security (Second Provider chain in all of Cosmos)
- Fundraise from Industry Greats such as Bitfinex, Avalanche (Blizzard), CMS, UDHC (Former MakerDAO Foundation Team, and more
- Onboarded top tier Cosmos validators such as Cosmostation, Citadel One, Autostake, Strangelove, Decentrio, Chorus One, Ledger, Stakecito, and more
- Ledger Live native integration in desktop and mobile apps, compatible with Ledger devices
- Dozens of well-received educational articles
- US Legal Opinion from a well-respected law firm with former SEC Litigators
- Partnerships/Collaborations with Avalanche, Polygon, Aurora on Near, Moonbeam on Polkadot, Neon on Solana, Osmosis and many more
- Hummingbot Connector Integration partnership with Pecunia Finance (The largest open source market making platform)
- Dozens of AMAs, interviews, and KOL outreach
- Integrations in Mintscan, Comostation IBC Wallet, Leap Wallet, and more
- Multiple halted partnerships, including solutions that would significantly quicken Onomy product launches, due to delays on previously assured development completion or timelines
- Launching ONEX as the first consumer chain on both testnet and mainnet
- New IBC paths and channels on mainnet
- Community Discord Revamp, ranks, Zealy, and community management
- Exchange Listings on Bitfinex, Kucoin, Gate, CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko
- Market Making Partnerships with Wintermute, GSR, FalconX, DWF, Flow Traders
4. Untransparent Usage of Governance-Granted Tokens and Sell Pressure
The founder has consistently dumped NOM tokens on exchange orderbooks, creating significant sell pressure and destabilizing the token price. Evidence above shows that the 1-man entity, Aionic Systems, has paid itself an estimated average of $800k+ over the past year, conservatively, by selling millions of NOM with zero accountability, claiming that “this is not a charity”, while the rest of the team has voluntarily worked on progressing Onomy for over 2 years, receiving minimal compensation in comparison. Additionally, 750K of these tokens were fallen victim to a common OTC scam that could have been prevented by transparently checking in with the rest of the team and market makers.
Furthermore, Aionic Systems has consistently refused OTC deals that settle sales off of exchange orderbooks, preferring to market sell NOM with no regard for orderbook liquidity. AS claimed that so long as they partially buy some NOM back, price returns to where he sold and there’s no market impact. This shows severe misunderstanding of market dynamics. The Founding Team specifically asked AS what amount of money he would like monthly in return for no longer selling on exchanges. This deal was refused with a response of “Fuck you, these are my tokens.”
Aionic Systems will claim that they funded the team salaries and the cloud costs. However, the $800K+ is already net of the verifiable deposits made into the team account. Moreover, the cloud costs are only around $3k per month.
The way Aionic Systems operates is that it only does work once funding is close to drying up. On-chain stats showcase Aionic Systems is close to running out of liquid available NOM to sell, and with the recent decrease in the coin’s price, is once again seeking more funding. Indeed, a version of the Onomy Reserve may be launched, but at what cost?
The Founding Team votes no-confidence in AS ability and this proposal would be a misuse of funds. This behavior is unsustainable and indicative of continued self-interest over the project’s success.
5. The Aionic Systems Proposal - Our Thoughts
To this day, we are still waiting for the Onomy Reserve, even after repeated claims of its completion or new timelines that have since lapsed. The team still has no clear understanding of peg logic, nor timeline - the proposal at hand claims specific dates, yet just earlier, Aionic Systems stated that it was ready and already live on devnet. The proposal also contained work that would be executed by us, such as front-end integration and product UI/UX. Additionally, testnet and mainnet launches are completed by all validators - not only Aionic Systems. It feels as though the proposal itself is a misrepresentation of the true status and work that would be performed by AS.
With the above context in mind, here’s a summary of where we stand on the latest proposal for 5M $NOM funding.
- There is no clear STATUS or Documentation of the Reserve mechanisms - Opaque
- We were told the Onomy Reserve devnet was live weeks ago, yet the proposal lists devnet deployment for week 5 - Misrepresentation
- We were told ONEX and the Arc Bridge Hub were ready 2 years before we saw the very first version of the Exchange, significantly underwhelming. We fear the same for the Reserve - Misrepresentation
- The founder claims to be solely responsible for all chain operations, despite having our other cofounder lift off the ONEX consumer chain, IBC paths and relayers, plus ONEX UI launch alongside partners & contributors he onboarded for both testnet and mainnet - Misrepresentation
- We were told Aionic Systems runs cloud operations and validators, yet the founder was not able to maintain a NOM <> Osmosis relayer, the ETH <> NOM bridge, and all other cloud operations, having other team members do it on his behalf - Lack of proficiency on simple chain operations
- The wider team, including those managed by him, were never able to receive explanations on technical design, functionality, timeline, or progress made - Lack of transparency
- The founder of Aionic Systems has carelessly sold more $NOM than the rest of the team combined, and still retains 12.5M+ $NOM, yet is requesting more funding, despite years of misrepresentation - Sell pressure.
- Aionic is outright blackmailing the DAO - “if you vote no, I will shut down all operations” - in other words, attempting to conquer through fear and deceit, despite having netted near an estimated $1M and having provided zero accountability for the aforementioned amount - Blackmailing.
- The reality is, Onomy is decentralized and its current ecosystem can survive and thrive without Aionic System’s involvement. The Founding Team (minus Charles) is willing to take on all infrastructure costs for the nodes and front-end interface hosting. In fact, we set up the current infrastructure and maintain it. Charles has been paying around $3k per month for it.
Should the proposal pass, 5M tokens, in addition to 12.5M existing, will be dumped if history continues, ending 3y+ of all-hands-on-deck support from you, the community, our partners, and the rest of the team.
Will the Reserve be built by Aionic Systems? Perhaps - but not in the way we envision. Too little, too late.
Decision: No with Veto.
6. Next Steps
Voting NO on this proposal is not the end of Onomy - we believe the previous funding received by Aionic Systems, operating with one employee, is sufficient to bootstrap the Reserve, while Aionic Systems still has millions of NOM that are currently vesting, giving this entity enough upside to deliver what was asserted as complete.
Should Aionic Systems decide to step down without fulfilling representations made to team, VCs and community as part of the initial funding received, there are multiple development entities eager to support Onomy, with significantly lower funding demands, and with a much more ethical approach towards building the Internet’s Financial System. OIPs in this regard will be published in the near future.
Given the full scope, we find it hard to confidently onboard net-new partners while there is a vote of no-confidence in the technical lead’s skill and management of others. We have offered every reasonable excuse, bought more time than what is reasonable. Yet, even then we did not call it quits. We championed even harder, repositioned Onomy’s narrative to an Internet Financial System hub, and onboarded new partners to ensure the sustainability of Onomy and remove everything we could from Charles’ plate. We stuck through and pushed regardless of what came to light because we wanted to put the community and collective DAO first. We sacrificed a lot and took even more reputational risk. Even after all of this, far too much time has passed and we witnessed additional behavior we wish not to detail that led to a vote of no-confidence. Because of the significant personal stake that AS still holds, and the history involved, it is difficult to accept enriching him further whilst also taking on development roles from him.
Interestingly, through this experience, the network has actually become more robust and decentralized. We believe people can change. Enough funding has been awarded that should have covered the Reserve, and AS still retains 13M+ NOM earning 2M+ NOM a year through staking rewards.
Proof is well-documented and available for all statements made in this reply. We held back a lot here out of good-faith.
9 Likes
Thank you for the transparency, and for having the courage to express this situation in a public forum.
The only thing I could fault the founding team (minus Charles) on really is not coming clean sooner but with your exceptional skill sets I can see how you convinced yourselves it was for the greater good and you could pull it all off, and unfortunately you just dug yourselves in deeper - don’t worry been there done that : ) and I can tell you once the burden is lifted and light replaces shadows we will came back faster and harder than ever : )
In light of this I will be pulling my support of this proposal and hope the founding team ( minus Charles ) can now accelerate 
2 Likes
Absolutely. I also wanted to write that it’s a shame the team didn’t share this information sooner. I understand the balance they wanted to find and now a lot of things are falling into place. And it’s sad to see how Charles defends himself in the telegram, rather than providing a reasoned response here if he thinks it’s not true.
1 Like
I am grateful to the team that they have not lost faith and are ready to move on. I hope in the future the core team will be more open to the DAO even if there are critical problems. Only by being open to each other can we overcome all problems.
1 Like
I don’t know how I can be useful in this situation. But if the main team needs help with simple or routine tasks, I can help absolutely free of charge without any funding or salary. Just for the idea of Onomy.
1 Like
No with veto from my end as well. This is unacceptable. Props on you team for trying to handle this internally for so long, but I am glad you posted it after the recent attacks. Cant believe I thought Aionic systems had a good proposal before reading this…
1 Like
Within the chat forums I made it clear that if there was another competent team that was wanting to take over my responsibilities then I would be happy to step aside and let them.
It looks like Lalo would like to manage moving forward these obligations. I have done my best, I know where I was wrong and know where my heart is.
I also understand their sentiment with this post and have no reason to debate details. Stories always have two sides, but without DAO support it would not make sense for me to move forward.
1 Like
Charles, if you really care about the project, as you say, then you have a chance to save it and stay in the good. Do a proper handover, give all your remaining tokens to the treasury and buy back tokens from the open market with the money left over from your previous sales.
2 Likes
I support. For the work done, you already had funding and if you do not plan to further develop Onomy, it would be logical to return the tokens that you have back to the treasury.
2 Likes
I do not have any DAO funded tokens left to return. My founder stake is locked in validators Tao and Force.
1 Like
The only chance for Charles to redeem himself is to launch ORES without any extra funding. He still has 13m NOM right? I see that makes $100K a year in return. Doesn’t he want upside if he is confident he can do it?
To clarify on your part. Lalo’s team claims that you spent about $800 thousand (detailed screenshot is in the answer) in 14 months starting in May 2023. Can you provide a report on the work done during this period and what these funds were spent on?
Here is a sample of my GitHub work. My work has always been out in the open. The grants were made out in the open.
I meant more detailed information as you did in this proposal, in order to see the stages of the work done.
Okay, let’s skip this point. If you link to your work, then it was payment for your work, which can be seen on GitHub. We take the amount of 820 thousand dollars and divide it by 14 months, it turns out 58+ dollars per month. Do I understand correctly that 58 thousand dollars a month is your salary? That being said, you previously mentioned that you literally had to starve and find another job due to lack of funding, but now we see that the funding was actually from a DAO with a monthly amount of $58+ thousand.
Further. According to your current plan, you planned to realize the reserve in 3 months. Why then did the work on creating the exchange last 14 months? I am in no way devaluing your work, I just want to logically understand this situation. Since you are left with a significant amount of tokens as one of the creators of Onomy, you receive a large yield from two validators, you received good funding from the DAO. If you are really interested in the project, as you yourself declare, why can’t you take responsibility and complete the development of the reserve in three months, taking into account all the points I mentioned earlier. I just don’t understand it.
1 Like
I don’t have support from the DAO. Plain and simple, the DAO needs a developer that they will support and trust. I am here to walk through my code and thought processes with whomever comes behind me.
So you want to say that the screenshot of the sum of expenses that Lalo’s team provided is not true and in fact there was no funding?
The grants were voted on and granted by the DAO with a high percentage in favor of the grants. I did my best to execute on the project and there isn’t really any benefit to going over details. This proposal is dead and I will only be discussing handover from here.