Long Term Sustainability

Hi guys, sorry for the novice question, but I have some doubts about the project’s sustainability. The project raised funds through an ICO. Part of these funds went to the development of the project. At some point, these resources will run out. My doubts are:

  1. In the transition from the ENG to SCRT token, was there any new funding for the development of the project?
  2. Where will new funds come from to pay for the development of the project in the future?
  3. If this amount comes from transaction fees or a percentage of staking rewards, when will these funds be used (is there any stablished time frame)?
  4. Is there a contract of the current team with the development of the project that needs to be renewed or will the current team continue to develop the project forever?

Thank you in advance!

Thank you for sharing your concerns!

It’s a great opportunity for me to personally respond with my thoughts on the matter. One of the reasons I was excited to work at Enigma is how they changed the game for everyone. This community has been through a lot, and I’m confident we have a solid approach for long-term sustainability.

To be clear, I don’t speak for Enigma. My last day there was earlier this month. I’m currently working for Secret Foundation. Recently, there was a proposal passed to implement a new tax, alongside the community tax.

I appreciate your specific questions. Here are my answers:

  1. No
  2. Block rewards and product-market fit
  3. Enigma is able to delegate or validate in order to earn rewards by staking, just like other network participants ~ our timeframe is always now!
  4. Secret Network is like any open-source project. Hoping to create value for the universe! Development is a responsibility of the whole community, but of course, Enigma’s dev team is a core contributor.

Please don’t hesitate to follow up with more feedback. I’m here to help :blush:

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Hi @jlwaugh ! Thank you very much for the answers, it is helping a lot. Sorry to bother you, but I would like to continue clarifying a few points:

A) As I understand it, the foundation will now be financed by a tax. Can this tax be used to contract development for the project? I mean, could you choose to pay the Enigma team?

B) The Secret project is technically special because of the concept of secret contracts. This concept exists thanks to the technical knowledge and ideas of the Enigma team. In my view, this causes some dependence in the medium term. What prevents the team from selling their tokens and abandoning the project now? I mean, if things are difficult and the team is not being paid as it deserves, they can choose to give up.

Just as an example, the Cardano project establishes contracts with the development team for a specified period. At the end of the contract, the community votes on which team the foundation will spend its funds on to establish a new contract. Without such formality it seems difficult to depend on the goodwill of a team.

Sorry if I’m talking nonsense. I would like to understand this issue better. Thank you again!

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No worries! Here is my brief response. I’d recommend joining our weekly governance meeting if you’d like to collaborate on sustainable development and growth initiatives.

A. Enigma is independently resourced, but yes, eventually Secret Foundation could pay them. I don’t know if that will be necessary.

B. There is certainly a dependence on Enigma. For example, the Secret Network repository is in Enigma’s GitHub organization, and they are core contributors and maintainers. Have a look at all their work being done publicly on GitHub. They are also active in our Secret Chat.

I guess you might say the Foundation tax is like Cardano’s model because the community can vote to change its parameters. Generally, we’re interested in learning from all kinds of projects in order to create better governance systems for Secret Network. We’d love to get additional insights about how the Cardano Foundation supports a thriving ecosystem.

:pray: Thanks again for your thoughtful questions!

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Thank you again. Just the last question, when you say “Enigma is independently resourced”, do you mean they can make money in the ecosystem apart from Secret Foundation (and apart from running a pool)? If yes I would like to know how.

Secret business plans! Find out more by joining our weekly committee discussions:

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Enigma is independently resourced, but yes, eventually Secret Foundation could pay them. I don’t know if that will be necessary.

On the following, if this ever happened I would drop my support for the Secret Foundation unless there was a really good reason. Enigma already has their significant SCRT allocation, which they can stake or eventually sell, on top of their private ventures like with SafeTrace which I’m guessing isn’t done for free.

In fact, if anything, this pretty much goes against the mission of the foundation. Aren’t we trying to encourage more decentralization?

Enigma devs are top tier, we all know that, but increasing dependencies in this way shouldn’t be the answer ever really.

On the following, if this ever happened I would drop my support for the Secret Foundation unless there was a really good reason. Enigma already has their significant SCRT allocation, which they can stake or eventually sell, on top of their private ventures like with SafeTrace which I’m guessing isn’t done for free.
In fact, if anything, this pretty much goes against the mission of the foundation. Aren’t we trying to encourage more decentralization?
Enigma devs are top tier, we all know that, but increasing dependencies in this way shouldn’t be the answer ever really.

James is speaking from a foundation’s perspective. I can offer Enigma’s. We neither expect nor do we have plans to ask the foundation or the community pool for additional funding. On the contrary, Enigma donated proceeds (mainly SCRT) to the foundation because we see how valuable the community and community-run organizations are.

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To clarify what I believe to be the Foundation’s position:

The Foundation serves the interests of the network and community. Whatever resources the Foundation has, it uses to benefit our mission: drive global adoption of privacy-first, open-source technologies and networks while creating sustainable ecosystems to support them.

Enigma and Secret Foundation are aligned on this mission, and we are also aligned on empowering all members of the community to play a crucial role in governance and growth. The Foundation is grateful for the support of both Enigma and the broad community at this critical early stage while we work to place the network on solid and sustainable footing :slight_smile:

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