[AMA] Ameen Soleimani, Co-Creator of Moloch DAO
Ameen Soleimani was invited to answer questions during a private AMA on Telegram. This is an edited transcript of the conversation.
Group: Ameen - could you start off by giving us a brief bio touching on your background as well as how you got started in crypto? And then a short overview of your project, how the idea came to be, and how it’s going so far? We’ll then be off to the races with questions.
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Background - chemical engineering BS at RPI, self-taught programmer, first crypto was buying mushrooms on silk road, lost a bunch of money in Mt Gox, got into ETH in 2016 (same time I learned about Moloch), worked at ConsenSys for 1 year on state channels, energy, and AdChain (1st TCR), left to start SpankChain summer 2017. With respect to Moloch, the idea has evolved from a ConsenSys 2.0 to a Grants DAO.
Group: If you were to launch Ethereum today, would you bother with a Moloch or would you make development incentives native to the protocol design?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): I don't think we've proven that: (1) DAO really work well or (2) that the Ethereum community knows how to use them properly. Until we do it's dead in the water because the coordination cost would be too high. I'm all for inflation funding in the longer term for ETH though (e.g. 1-2 years, maybe with a slower ramp up).
Group: We've got a number of people who have never heard of Moloch in this room. How would you explain it to them and why should they care?
Group: How many people are members of Moloch today? Is there a place I can see stats on how many people have applied, been admitted, what’s been voted on, how funds have been deployed, etc?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Today, Moloch is a grants DAO. We have 22 member who each put in 100 eth to start. You can buy shares (to vote with) for eth (but must be voted in by existing members). We then vote on grant proposals to issue funds but don't actually send ETH, we just dilute all existing shareholders to mint new shares for the grant recipient. It's a minimum viable DAO, 400 lines of code. 1 week voting period. 1 week grace period during which you can RAGEQUIT if you don't agree with a proposal and voted NO or didn't vote. MolochDAO.com shipped yesterday, still a bunch of UI tweaks to make but *it works.
Group: How will you measure the success of Moloch in the short, medium, and long run?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Probably the best metric is total grants issued and how much difference we think those grants made.
Group: Any specific theme guides the proposals or is it 100% free for all anything goes?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Focusing first on ETH 2.0, the first proposal is to pay Kyokan for The State of ETH 2.0 Report they wrote that we published last month. But ultimately it's the will of the members that decides. Votes are simple majority, no quorum. I'm just the Summoner, I have no special privileges. And by "Summoner" I mean that to bootstrap the DAO I had the first and only share, which means that only I could submit proposals and vote on them until more members received their shares.
Group: Do you consider Moloch a for-profit DAO or non-profit?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): I would consider it a non-profit DAO. I don't think anyone is expecting to make money off this beyond the speculative value of the ETH they still have a claim on. But we haven't pursued formal classification yet.
Group: Any backstop against extreme fringe cases? Say in the early days when it's easy to collude and gain majority vote, a bunch of folks vote to finance something illegal
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Yea, everyone who doesn't want to be party to it can RAGEQUIT at any time. Also FYI ragequit is a technical term - it's the name of the function on the contract - and it allows you to withdraw your fraction of the ETH held in the Guild Bank at any time. So if you don't want to fund shady stuff, pull out.
Group: Can you explain the implications of ragequit? What happens exactly? So grant recipients get rewarded in membership shares in the DAO, which are redeemable for ETH by ragequitting?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): A member has shares. You can ragequit up to all of your shares. If there is 100 ETH in the GuildBank, 100 shares outstanding, and you have 1 share and ragequit, you will receive 1 ETH. You can do this at any time, so long as you have not voted YES on any proposals in the 1 week voting or 1 week grace period. If you voted YES you can't ragequit any of your shares until the proposal that you voted YES on is processed (at the end of the grace period).
Correct, as a grant recipient you would have to ragequit in order to receive your funds. You can choose to stay in the Guild, and participate in future dilutive grants, but also be able to vote on them. Or you can ragequit up to all of your shares. If you leave at least 1 share, you will still be considered a member and will still be able to submit proposals in the future, without having to ask a member to do so on your behalf.
Group: So, contrarily to the popular definition of “ragequit”, you can “partially ragequit”, right? If I have 100 shares, I can ragequit X shares, and have 100-X left?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities! Yes, you can "half ragequit".
Group: The fact that you guys had $275k of ETH pledges before your UI even launched is pretty insane. Do you have any AUM goals? How big do you think Moloch's AUM can get in its first year?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Goals? I mean ideally the EF would figure out a way to give us all their money, or we could coordinate membership from ICO treasuries, and get to $100M+ but I'd be happy with a few $MM by EOY so we could start paying dev salaries.
Group: Have you had conversations with major stakeholders (i.e. EF, ConsenSys, large ICOs) and if so, what is their main argument against putting a few M$ in ASAP? In other words, what is stopping people with a vested interest in ETH to contribute? Why would the grantee want shares instead of ETH if they need to liquidate the funds for working capital?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Some conversations, but nothing definitive. I think we have a lot to prove first. First and foremost the argument would be security, which can only really be addressed by time * $ in a contract.
Group: What kind of coordination problems do you think this solves today? What problems would need more advanced mechanisms introduced?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): This question comes up a lot and I find it pretty silly. The grantee can ragequit their shares -> eth and sell the eth at any time. What's the difference? It solved the problem of Vitalik YOLOing 3000 ETH, and some other large holders following up (e.g. someone donated 800 ETH to prysmatic, then followed up another 2000 ETH (2800 total) after I arranged a meeting with them). More people would do this if they didn't have to go at it alone. I think the most likely game theoretic hole is that the DAO has weak spam prevention.
Group: Should the EF get bigger and do more or get smaller and turn things over to the community?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): It seems their plan is to stay the same size, but let the ecosystem grow, so they play a smaller role in it. I think they should get smaller, TBH I'm not sure who is in charge of firing around there.
Group: Any plans to do milestone-based grants?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Milestone based grants would be great. We haven't formally mapped out the grant system, it's basically all ad-hoc based on the members votes so we still have to decide on the social norms as we go. I have no authority in this operation. Moloch will do as its members will. Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Group: Given the Moloch issues grants via issuing share of Moloch, what is the value of a Moloch token to the grantee?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Well right now it's 1 share = 1 ETH. But you would be wise to calculate the post-dilution value of the shares before requesting.
Group: Moloch's aim seems to be fixing one aspect of governance--funding & distribution for public infrastructure. Wil Moloch solve any other unsolved issues wrt Ethereum governance (e.g. signaling for EIPs)?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): I think coordination / signaling around those issues will be very important, but I don't know that they necessarily require a whole DAO that people deposit ETH into, e.g. I have ETH-whale friends that are talking to exchanges about making it easier to vote/signal with cold-storage funds. Probably a more efficient approach for EIP signaling, tbh.
Group: Are Moloch shares a security?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): No
Group How confident are you that Eth 2.0 will ship worthly successor to Eth 1.0--and how has your confidence increased/decreased over the last 12 months?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): I'm pretty confident. Like, 85% today. We talked to the leads of those teams and they are all highly committed to the cause. As I see the specs released, the client teams getting into a good cadence, and people like Danny Ryan stepping up, I'm more bullish today than I was in the past 12 months.
Group: Given moloch grant shares operate like shares or options for work, do you think vesting should play a role in grants for work to be completed or alternatively each grant should be for work already completed.
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): You could just issue a proposal every month, instead of all at once if we're worried about you stopping work or not delivering.
Group: Might be a dumb Q but how does Moloch compare with other "grant/treasury type mechanisms"? For example on DCR anyone can submit a proposal on how to use treasury funds and any token holder who has a ticket can then vote on proposals
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): IDK about DCR but in Moloch "claims-on-treasury" and "votes" are just 1 thing, shares.
Group: What's wrong with protocol mandated Tezos/Decred/Polkadot style coin vote governance w/ token issuance as a way to distribute infrastructure funds? What attacks on Moloch are you most concerned about? What are some lessons you’ve learnt from the DAO that influenced Moloch’s design?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): This makes it more simple, but comes at a price. You can't just blindly donate to the GuildBank, because that money can be claimed by any of the members. That's also why it's not suitable for managing inflation rewards.
Someone defecting and spamming the proposal queue. The cost of submitting a proposal is 10 eth locked up for at least 2 weeks. It isn't very expensive, and you definitely get your money back.
Group: In all respectfulness, would you comment on an interaction you had with @rzurrer? Do you hold Dots? How do you feel about Ethereum's ability to compete with other platforms in the long term? What are your reasons for betting on Ethereum specifically? How committed are you to Ethereum?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Like, the 10 eth is a deposit, not an expense. I hold no DOTs personally, but I bought some on behalf of SpankChain. I think Ethereum will be extremely competitive in the future and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional or mistaken. I am betting on Ethereum because it has the best community, is the smart contract platform most likely to secure the greatest monetary premium and smart contract interoperability network effects. Also permissionless innovation.
Group: So your committment to Ethereum is based on the Ethereum's technological merit, first and foremost?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Like, Polkadot can kick out parachains it doesn't like. The adult industry has been historically on the "other" side of consensus.
Group: Shouldn’t outflows outpace inflows eventually? And the bank dries?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): If the outflows outpace the inflows... we're doing it wrong. But yes, this isn't intended for long-term sustainability. It's actually designed for planned obsolesence. There is no upgrade mechanism. To upgrade, we must all ragequit and join a new contract. The only sustainable way to do this is with inflation funding. But because ETH doesn't have inflation funding, all funding for protocol development and so on has to come from volunteers.
Group: Can you talk about SpankChain progress and how that relates to/shares time with MolochDAO? Where Moloch receives continuous injections to the bank? Are you interested in a more sustainable model that uses a stablecoin so that members aren't taking on volatility risk? Do you see Moloch being some sort of PoC for better ecosystem funding in Ethereum?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): You only take on volatility risk on the price of ETH during the 2 weeks it takes for your proposal to get voted on and then processed. Also stablecoins don't make it sustainable, bad framing. Yes, it's intended to teach ETH stakeholders how to DAO. And by this I don't just mean participating in DAOs, although that is very important, but also - how to think about DAO design in general. MolochDAO is a side project for me. I'm a SpankChain maximalist.
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!
There's at least some social signaling I expect to drive this as well. Would be great to have ETH whales only invited to strategy sessions with community leaders if you agreed to burn X% of your holdings per year. Also by "burn" I mean "donate" through MolochDAO or to teams directly.
Group: Does the Moloch DAO support programmable grants? For example, in Tezos there is “constitutionalism” in that it is possible to integrate a proof checker within the protocol so that only an amendment carrying a formal proof that it respects certain properties captures an on-chain bounty via inflation funding.
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): But not until we've figured out how to DAO, because then everyone's argument will be "but who will spend the money? How do we trust them? What if they suck?" I don't know about any protocol mumbo jumbo, but you can submit a smart contract as the applicant in a proposal which will receive the shares, which can have its own rules and permissions (e.g. a verifier who only releases the money over time or based on milestones).
Group: So experiment with DAOs out of protocol and potentially bring it in later if all goes well
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Yes, this seems like the sane way to approach the problem.
Group: Are there any formal or informal requirements to become a member?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Just that the existing members have to vote you in. You could even do it anon, if the existing members made a strong enough case for you.
Group: Are there other big problems in Ethereum where you think a v0 incremental solution should be explored but that you don’t have time to take on yourself? If so, do you have any thoughts about how to go about it? Or: if you could duplicate yourself, what would be Ameen2’s side project?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): I'm excited to implement PID controllers on smart contracts for stablecoins... but that's Ameen1s project.
- plasma needs to ship a venmo like app
- need watchtowers for channels / plasma
- no user should ever have to think about gas again, all $$ -> smart contracts, 100% metaTxns
- way more personal multisig stuff along the lines of the gnosis safe
- screen names should have been a thing 2 years ago
It's literally the two suggestions at the bottom of this article. Also wrt to the design, I tried to make it as simple as possible to reduce the chances of it getting hacked. TheDAO was 1400 lines of code. There is a stalking attack on TheDAO, where you try and leave by making your own childDAO, but then the attack can follow you into your childDAO forever, which ended up happening. Solved wtih instant withdrawals, and way less complicated.
Group: outside of work on eth2.0 which projects are you most excited about in ethereum right now
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Excited about DAO experiments like dxDAO and polkaDAO (which as far as I can tell is a direct copy of dxDAO). Excited about Uniswap and Gnosis Safe. Connext is taking the payment channel work we did together to the next level with their DaiCard. Pretty excited to see what central banks come up with when they start to get into it. I'm excited about per-impression micropayments in real-time bidding for digital advertising a la AdEx. Excited about legit decentralized reputation systems.
Group: What are your thoughts on the level of professionalism of Ethereum? Web3 alone for example is riddled with bugs and breaking changes are thrown out constantly, which makes it hard to build serious businesses on top.
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!
Web3? I thought that was a Polkadot thing. If your chief worry about building a "serious business" on ETH is the bugs in web3... you might not be that serious. Also there is this.
Group: What's your alternative?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): I mean, if you're worried about breaking changes, use a specific version? Or create your own contract wrappers and only use web3 for the simple stuff? Like, store your txns in a DB cache, query that for up to date data, or use The Graph.
Don't get me wrong ETH could be more professional and have more dedicated maintenance, but web3 has worked decently well for the last 3 years and has a wealth of information on stackoverflow etc for getting around its more annoying aspects.
Actually if I had an Ameen2 I would put him to work immediately on building an Ethereum light-client in SQL.
Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!
Group: Tell us how you came up with the name Moloch and why Moloch. Any types of proposals you're most hoping to see as things get going?
Moloch DAO (Ameen Soleimani): I thought Moloch—the god of coordination failures—would make for a fun ironic joke as a name for a DAO intended to solve coordination problems amongst the Ethereum community. At the very least, I thought it would get more people to read Meditations on Moloch, so we know what we're up against.
Ideally I want to see non-diminishing returns types of proposals (things that EF and others are not as focused on), but that would also provide value across teams. Documentation, testing tools, simulators, might make good proposals. At least at the beginning while we're still somewhat resource constrained.
I mean, I also don't think I have to be the one to figure it all out, either. I'd love to see membership proposals to bring in those working on ETH already and get more insight from them. I didn't intend to have all the answers going into this, I was mostly interested in starting the conversation with the right people in the room. So if you have something to contribute, please offer your tribute to Moloch and join us!
Also there's this great article out about SpankChain / Moloch / me today
Group: Alright, I think that does it. Everyone give a big thank you to Ameen!