There was a time, when Sartoshi was gone from twitter and the mfers who had access to the mfers treasury were the main entity of the movement. Times were different, the ecosystem was sustaining itself by the efforts of many. There was a lot of chaos and different mfers were overloaded with work. Even when the community did want to do good with the funds, somebody had to organize the voting process, the events and so on. When Sartoshi was gone, a key figure who constantly respired the flame was clearly missing, the task of breathing life into the movement shifted to the ones that cared, even though Sartoshi was gone. And many people cared, but in different ways and I had a clear opinion at that point of time. I still have, but I also understand, that even when people had opposites of my opinion we were all critical for the movement. Critical debates are the offspring of life, death comes from too much consent without asking questions.
At the end of this short excerpt of past event, which you could see on the main page before, I will explain where I was wrong and what I learned.
In my opinion this particular point of time was the most critical for mfers history, many forgot about it, I believe my role of sparking a flame of healthy criticism was the main reason, why many didn’t support my tweets openly for a long time and a few had more respect for myself. I didn’t change the path of history, I simply ignited a spark and lots of mfers helped – the rest is history.
Mfers started to write their own history
Tweet of officially unofficial mfers, tweet from Imp0ster about governance structure
After sartoshi departed from us and the treasury was mostly left untouched for a long time except investments regarding three causes: – Ukraine donation, – NYC mfers party, – cannabis company (literally growing weed), the signers of the treasury decided to take action and establish a new system with 5 nodes, that should receive at least 50% of the treasury in total. According to my information the treasury is holding 125 ETH at the moment.
The 5 nodes have different teams and the idea is that at least one signer joins each node:
node 1: masterchan, prettycool, rey
node 2: imp0ster, kiki, sartocrates
node 3: zhoug, anonchickenlegs, thebadcc, heresmyeth, s34n
node 4: mleejr, miniboss, breezy
node 5: kml, paco, remus
The funding of the nodes will be a one time event and is run as an experiment. All of the original 7 signers got the opportunity to create a node. If the first iteration goes well, more iterations with more nodes shall follow and additional nodes like a node to represent the discord shall emerge.
Since this is a new experiment I personally tried to hop into spaces when I could, as a listener and as a person to ask critical questions. I also contacted mfers who thought critical about this development and the creation of nodes.
Why? “Intelligent individuals learn from every thing and every one; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers.” Socrates
No mfer is enlightened. We make mistakes, mfers are humans. It doesn’t matter in which position they are in the mfer movement or in IRL, we make mistakes. The people who thought critical about the developments shared one thing, they wanted the best for the mfers movement.
My goal with the following discussion is not to criticize the idea of creating or using the 5 nodes, but to improve the positive aspects and reduce risks by listening to other mfers and showing possible problems beforehand. Since I have a „funny biography“ I will also add learnings from my past experiences and talk about incentive systems, which was my favorite topic of my master studies.
The Nodes
The 5 nodes are meant to act independently. It is a more decentralized approach for quicker decision making.
I believe the main goal of the treasury should be to help the mfers movement grow. If the movement grows the volume and therefore the funds for the treasury should also increase. So, what might be necessary to let the movement grow?
1. Sustain the mfers movement size and keep the mfers that contribute (prevent that the movement shrinks or important characters leave the movement, because they don’t feel valued)
2. Give incentives for mfers to increase their contribution for the community and build things that help the movement
3. Experimental stuff, I will explain this point later.
So, I will mainly focus on point 1 and 2 and discuss arguments and show different perspectives.
„Sartoshi didn’t give the money to all mfers, he chose, he wanted the 7 to decide“.
Giving the royalty share to the mfers treasury might have been the most convenient and highest + EV (estimated value) decision that could have been taken at that particular moment. Why? How do you wanna distribute all ETH to all holders without immense cost? How many treasuries did exist? The treasury already existed and sartoshi gave it starting capital and took a risk doing so. Therefore we could argue, that the 7 were mainly chosen by the first 1/2/3 participants of the treasury and not directly by sartoshi himself, since there was no real alternative. Why do I argue about this? This quote feels a bit like something a Pope might have said in the middle ages. „Everything I do is correct, because I act as representative of God“. I disagree, I believe the bet on the treasury had many very good reasons and was the right decision when we think about the commitment of imp0ster with her tattoo, the engagement of mfers like MasterChan in the discord, the programming stuff that zhoug and imp0ster delivered and so on…
But I consider the 7 mfers as people that were trusted because they contributed something in the past and showed that they do not simply waste the treasury funds for bad reasons, representatives that were trusted to work with the movement to create the best for mfers, nothing less, but nothing more.
Furthermore I believe it is more important to sustain the movement than to grow it. Why? With sustaining I mean keeping the utility that people show exclusively for mfers, these people are also able to put their service in favor of any other NFT collection. We shall not forget this and value them. These mfers are part of the reason, why we have the funds in the first place. What do I mean with utility? I mean contribution, when shitposter and memers like marto and MinisterOfNFTs help the movement to draw attention to the mfers collection other people help to make them stay, because they provide utility and contributions that show that the community is alive, thriving and evolving. Contributions can take many forms: being a viral shitposter and creating memes like marto or MinisterOfNFTs, holding spaces like MasterChan or 0xMakaveli and EssCat, educating mfers about coding like zhoug or educating mfers about creating memes like MasterChan, creating data reports like Kaze did and I do, creating new mfers resources like the mferpedia or this website, doing governance for mfers as a signer holding spaces and answering many questions, gathering feedback and so on…
These were all things that mfers could have collected funds for, but mfers did it for free, and many of them did a great job doing so. Does it have less value, because they did it for free? No. Should their contributions be rewarded? Yes, I think so. I believe this for more than one reason. When a person already showed that they sacrifice their free time to contribute, I believe the probability is high that they deliver good stuff when they receive funds. I believe that it is less likely, that people who didn’t contribute yet and want to receive funds are a better investment.
We probably all know a guy or a woman that made a small fortune after some kind of miracle and suddenly many „new friends“ appear, that talk highly about themselves, who try to profit from the fortune that said guy or woman has made.
This is a big risk I see for mfers. That nodes suddenly pay attention to „the loudest voices, that ask for funds“ instead of the most diligent contributors. At some point I considered it as a big mistake from myself, when I listened how highly people spoke about themselves instead of looking at the results of their past work. Therefore I recommend two things. First when there is an idea that might benefit the mfers movement for example „coding classes“. Ask the mfers who already did coding classes for free and compensate them, instead of listening to the most marketing oriented proposal. Also give many mfers the possibility to actually apply to realize an idea that requires funding and let the most serious attempt win and check if this mfer has a convincing past to present, that shows consistency and commitment.
„With the funds I could buy this and sell that and increase the money for mfers“
I believe ideas like this should be in the last category. Since it is questionable how efficient they will turn out to be. If the funds could also be invested to increase the movement size and therefore cause an increase of volume and the funds of the treasury… buying and selling stuff could actually be – EV even if that person makes a + 100%, which is already quite difficult to realize. For example a funded meme campaign might draw more volume and holders and therefore more additional funds and more money to the treasury than investing the same funds into a buy and sell idea and making a profit of 100% on the initial investment. (Just an example, no recommendation for the use of funds)
So, what could signers / teams of nodes do now?
- Think about which contributions of mfers should be rewarded to keep the mfers as part of the movement
- Think about which proven contributors could also create even more value with projects that might benefit mfers, if they receive some funds (possible examples no direct recommendations: write mfer lore, mfer comics, mfer spaces, mfer coding classes, mfer meme creating classes, mfer interviews etc.)
- Think about which additional ideas that require funding would help the mfers movement and do background checks of mfers that apply for the ideas, and let past contributions and consistency count more than marketing talk.
- Another option might be the previous option 3 „experimental stuff“: like taking on a major world problem, like inventing a technology to save energy better (a big part of national energy crisis is not caused by a lack of energy but because the produced energy can’t be used when needed (lack of highly scalable energy storage technology)). In general point 3 is highly experimental and not mandatory, I would also count donations to this third point, because it is less effective to donate instead of solving the problem which creates the need of donations. Additionally donations won’t help the mfers movement directly. (I am not against donations, if mfers want it, I can make a big thread how you can donate money and increase the chance, that it actually makes a difference with scientific sources etc. (I wrote a big thread about it a long time ago, because of personal interest), I am simply a bigger fan of solving problems directly if the necessary capital is at hand.)
„A perfect mind knows no choice and doesn’t need any rules“
What does it mean? Every rule is an imperfect try of securing a little bit more EV on the outcome. Every decision is unique and if there would be an enlightened person he wouldn’t need any rule because he could predict the outcome of each choice and therefore would only take the right decision and would never have to choose between two options.
With that in mind, there can be exceptions, but as said, „exceptions prove the rule“.
Therefore I believe integrating accountability for the actions of the nodes is very important. What does it mean? Kant described that if there are too many representatives and their actions are anonymous, soon representatives decide for their own good instead of doing a good job as a representative because nobody will hold them accountable for bad behavior.
A simple rule, that every node needs to keep a chart updated where they track when they invest / send funds elsewhere and their reasoning for each funding could help greatly to increase transparency and negate many possible problems.
“Even if a node messes up, they won’t be funded a second time”
If we use the rule to track the movement of funds and the reasoning behind investing decisions, we can ensure, that we only fund nodes that act responsibly. Even if there is no second funding round for those, we shall not forget that even the first funding round consists of a big amount of money for each node. I also believe it is good, that little teams (node teams) have a control function for ideas. Why? Well, often, many people don’t know the big picture of a situation and sometimes the probability, that an idea sounds amazing but is actually not realistic, is quite high.
Concerns of other mfers, that they told me via DMS:
- There is a concern that not enough mfers are involved in choosing directions for future developments, because nodes can basically do what they want. Nodes could basically decide to do the opposite of that, what the majority of mfers wishes for.
Articles that other mfers wrote regarding the most recent events and future developments:
- An article by @DadMod_xyz named Unpopular Perspectives – Issue #1: mfers Governance
I already asked for this previously, but if any mfers have concerns or can think about problems / solutions / things that are worth to be considered, feel free to dm me on twitter, I will try to implement them into this text. You can also write your own articles/ texts and I will link them. I personally don’t care if you have a positive / neutral or negative view on the recent and future developments. I want that mfers can learn from you and every opinion / feedback is valuable. In case you are shy / afraid of mentioning your opinion in front of others. I won’t share your username if you don’t want that. As long as your concerns are not offensive, I am willing to list them.
Will mfers end their own history?
Mfers, I come to you with an urgent matter. According to my information the signers compensation of 15% was decided, additionally 65% are planned for the nodes. Why does that matter? I believe we are all mfers and the reason why the treasury has funds to spend is because there are so many contributors who engage and interact with the community that attract new members and let established members stay. Even though the community is the reason why there is an income for the treasury, many voices remain unheard.
What we see here is a compensation for power not for contribution. Everyone that holds 1/7 of the power received a share of the 15%, even though the exact percentages differ based on recognition of contributions by other signers (3% – 0,78%, instead of 2,14% each). „Yeah, we got that sinner, chill, those were only 15%.“ The 15% are not the end but actually just the beginning. Most of the nodes only need 2 approvals to transfer funds from one address to another. We have at least 4 signers, that voted for the compensation, because this is the minimum requirement for a successful transaction and now the treasury might give 65% of funds to 5 nodes with signers, who picked their own teams.
From now on I will simply use the term “signers”! I don’t know how many signers were actually pro compensation / nodes. Please keep that in mind and don’t accuse all signers. We don’t know who voted for what. When I refer to “signers” I mean the ones, who were pro compensation and pro nodes and we don’t know who they are at the moment.
So, when signers use their power to compensate themselves and don’t use a fair system for all mfers, but instead give everyone with a share of power a share of pay, what will the nodes do?
To me those 65% actually feel like the maximum amount the signers could use without the community having big complains. „Chill sinner only 65%, still 35% left“. No, those are 80% (15% + 65%, since a big portion of power within the nodes is hold by signers, since each node has one signer). A common modern approach to test ideas is called „lean“. What does it mean? If you have a new idea, you use the smallest possible amount of needed capital to check if the idea is actually working. In this context you would never use 65% (more than 10 ETH per node) on an idea, which can be tested with 10% (still 2 ETH for each node). And the argument „bad nodes won’t get funded a second round“ shouldn’t count, when this amount is so damn high. The treasury has been accumulating since a very long time. Countless derivatives sent money to the treasury in best faith. It takes a volume of 400 ETH to create 10 ETH for the treasury. Based on this weeks volume this would be more than 40 days. If the first iteration (65%) goes wrong there might never be enough capital again to fund a second iteration of nodes with the same amount of ETH.
Mfers, I believe we need to stop that as soon as we can. If a specific set of morals was used for past decisions you shouldn’t be surprised if the same set of morals will be used for future decisions. Furthermore I believe that if a system is based on compensation for power, most of the contributors will leave eventually because the majority of contributions that will be valued, might be those that come from those in power. What does it mean? It is possible that some node teams decide to mainly fund their very own projects (compensate themselves for work they would like to do), instead of trying to implement an incentive system for contribution.
To elaborate this further let me tell you a story that I experienced (some years ago):
There was a guy who felt that his time is more valuable than others. He joined a committee of volunteers that had a lot of power and consisted of people that all signed up for free. He felt, that he needed compensation even though he received lots of power and lots of other benefits and therefore manipulated, threatened and convinced members to vote for a members compensation. A lot less people would have complained if he would have had considered everyone that was in this committee before. But this way he would have received less money, but it would have been fair, because the work of past members actually caused that they had money to spend. To get the money as quickly as possible, he recommended that all participants of the current committee shall receive the same amount of money. Among over ten members only one rebelled and chose morals instead of money. A little greed kicked in and bam money gone. But there was an aftermath:
Ultimately everything turned into a giant shit show, this committee that represented thousands of people became a very hated circle of people and even further iterations of committees had to face the consequences of these particular actions. – story end
Like the signers team, this committee consisted of volunteers. The guy who had the idea to compensate himself acted as a puppet master. He never voiced his own true standpoint in front of the opposition. He was letting other people speak and become the targets, because he knew he would loose an open argumentation. At the end all the puppets repeated arguments that tried to prove that they themself should be compensated for their sacrifices while ignoring all the members of the past iterations that were actually the main reason why they had funds to spend.
Every signer can resign. If you as a signer have the feeling it costs you too much time, it’s up to you to give your seat to someone else and simply give up your role as a signer. I ask the community to talk to the signers, as friendly as possible and convince them, that a fair solution is needed. (1. Being mean is usually contra productive, because people like to switch into defense mode as a countermeasure, be polite. 2. We don’t know which 4 voted for the compensation.)
How could a fair solution look like? (I was wrong about this one)
We make a plan what mfers would like to invest money in. For example 40% compensation for contributors, 40% nodes 20% on hold for emergencies (law stuff that might become relevant for the treasury etc.), 5 nodes will receive 2% each for the first try (30% on hold, till we learnt enough from the first iteration of nodes, every iteration will only will be 10% and if teams perform bad they will be replaced) to see, if the members are suitable for the job and are a good fit to hold power and take decisions over money. Therefore we would use rules to make all transaction visible and ask each node team, to explain their reasoning for each investment.
For the 40% we make categories of contribution. For example: viral shitposters (MinisterofNFTs), mfers spaces, mfers ressources, mfer utility, governance stuff, etc.
Then we ask the community which categories might be added, till the results are kinda okay (represent the wishes of the community). After that we try to measure the categories. For example viral shitposters is very easy to measure, simply look at those mfers with the biggest reach who use a mfer PFP. I guess the minister would be on place 1 by far. Then we split the % for each category among the first 3/5/10 names of each category according to relative amount of contribution. We also ask the community which category should receive how much % of the 40%. Ta-da, an incentive system for contribution, that includes all mfers.
I personally was a fan of sartoshis concept. He mainly rewarded those mfers that actually did mfers related stuff and didn’t simply use a mfer PFP while having a big reach. But the mfers specified engagement that is not suitable to directly receive compensation (i.e. mfer spaces) could be a good orientation for what to look out for.
I believe we need to decouple compensation from the nodes and give them a focus. So, node teams won’t compensate themselves like the signers did. Therefore we could give the node teams the mission to find diligent contributors to invest in, that can create new mfer related projects that might have a good impact for the mfers movement (for example a meme campaign by animatedmfers and the minister). Compensation of contribution could become a reoccurring event and with a kind of leaderboard concept for each category, all mfers would have an incentive to work towards something, trying to out best the competition in a fair manner.
We could still establish this solution, when we stop the nodes and ask the signers, that received too much money to simply give it back. (After we assessed their fair share according to the system) If a signer insists of keeping the money while a fair distribution of compensation for contribution recommends a smaller compensation, will you want to entrust 13% / 2% of the treasury funds to the team of that signer?
If there are no changes to the current system and the nodes receive the 65% as planned. I will stop making reports for mfers and this website will be shut down, at the day when it all began.
The situation changed
The situation has changed, because the signers team changed. We as a community have still an important situation at the moment. Many things happened behind the curtain that the majority of mfers is probably not aware of. Many mfers wanted to speak up, when I criticized different things that were going on. The majority of them never did anything critical even though they saw many problems and talked about it. Just because someone is not speaking up, doesn’t mean that he or she agrees or has no concerns.
Since there was a recent change, we as mfers have a golden opportunity to ask the signers for more transparency right now. Why? Well, you saw the most recent crypto exchange drama right? The main cause was, as so often, as I believe, a fundamental lack of transparency. Do you know which signers voted for what and had what kind of position? No, neither do I (you can check the votes for the activities of the treasury on chain, but this usually only tells half of the story at best). We have almost no idea what happens behind the curtain there.
Trust and good beliefs are good to have to see a sense in life, but a bullet proof concept with transparency as a foundation should be the way to go, when it comes to the signers decisions and what happens behind the curtain (no curtain > a pretty curtain).
As it is now, my opinion is: The less signers the better. Why? Well, we have no clue who is publicly saying a, but voting b. Some people actually complimented both sides all the time, which is hard to grasp, since they will still vote / argue for a or b at the end, which are opposites by the way! If we want to have constructive discussions we need to reduce the possibility for people to be completely ambiguous. The smaller the amount of signers, the easier it is to hold people accountable if someone messes up. Number of singers increases anonymity, which decreases transparency and that increases opportunistic behavior at the end (which is only good for those in power and bad for the rest).
So, mfers, if you want a bright future, make it happen. Don’t dream or talk in DMs, speak up! I don’t claim to be right with everything, but we can only discuss ideas that are voiced openly. If you don’t voice your opinion it will be treated as it is not existent and this would be a shame.
We should work towards a brighter future, before the next actions of the signers. The moment to act is now and not in a year. Transparency could be easily established. If a signers has a proposal it needs to be made public. If a signer wants to vote for something his reasoning needs to be published as well (days before the votes). Only a system like this would allow mfers to talk to signers and convince them of another opinion, if necessary.
Where I was wrong
At the current point of time I am a simple scholar. Luckily I got in contact with people who are experts on incentive systems and alike. I grasped the flaws of my initial thoughts of leaderboards and concepts but couldn’t imagine other ways of handling. Well the answer was always right there. Sartoshi always tried to reward people that did something cool, after they did it voluntarily, without the existence of an incentive or anything alike. Some did great stuff, but never got anything, some mfers got also did great stuff, which was quite crucial for the movement and got something here and there.
Leaderboards and incentive systems are bad, because people will optimize their behavior to get the most rewards. Not all the people, but the majority. People are basically lazy. They are in efficient in doing what they can do to acquire the most for themselves and not to create the greatest things. Trying to outdo yourself is often an intrinsic motivation, which might only be partially be able to be incentivized, depending on the theory you want to believe in.