[DAO:839dfff] Purchase of LAND in Genesis City

Governance
1

by 0x8218a2445679e38f358e42f88fe2125c98440d59 (1010)

Linked Draft Proposal

Purchase of LAND in Genesis City

Summary

This governance proposal is to advance the purchase of LAND in Genesis City.

Abstract

4 polls were conducted to determine 3 key objectives:

  1. Whether the community agrees to buy LAND in Genesis City.
    The community voted ‘YES’ (95%)

Refer to Annex (1)

  1. Whether to buy the cheapest on Marketplace, or to create a price formula.
    The community voted ‘Buy cheapest at marketplace’ (61%)

Refer to Annex (1)

  1. The parameters for purchasing LAND.
    The community voted to purchase LANDs that are 4k MANA and below(70%), at a monthly spending cap of 40k MANA or less(67%), and to give contiguous LANDS/ESTATE priority(76%)

Refer to Annex (2-4)

The recently concluded draft proposal has reaffirmed the support(80%) to move this into governance action.

Refer to Linked Draft Proposal (above)

Motivation

The DAO has been having ongoing discussions as to whether LAND should be purchased and repurposed for the past year, in order to provide valuable content as opposed to LANDs being left barren and used purely as a speculative instrument.
It is after numerous discussions that the community has decided it is best to purchase LANDs for purposes that will be agreed upon at a later date.

This bear market has also brought about a unique opportunity in which LAND value has reached fair to under valuation, and it is prudent for the DAO to make purchases of LANDs/ESTATEs now rather than during a bull market where valuations can go beyond what is deemed reasonable for purchase.

Specification

The monthly purchase process of LAND/ESTATE has to fulfil 5 criterias.

  1. Adhere to a price ceiling of 4k MANA per parcel

Annex (2)

  1. Adhere to a maximum monthly budget of 40k MANA.

Annex(3)

  1. LANDs which are contiguous and priced at or near floor(a leeway of +10% above floor price during the time of purchase) will be given priority. Only LANDs/ESTATEs which are evenly shaped(1x2, 1x3…, 2x2, 2x3…, 3x3, 3x4… and so forth) will be considered. If no such LANDs/ESTATE exists during the time of purchase, LANDs at floor price shall be purchased.

Annex (1) and (4)

  1. Purchase is to be made at the end of each month, at any point in the day(GMT), at the discretion of the DAO Committee.

  2. All purchases are to only be made with MANA. Purchases can be made on both Opensea as well as the Decentraland Marketplace.

Impacts

  1. The vesting contract releases approximately 1.7m MANA per month. Therefore, the expenditure of 40k MANA per month represents approximately 2.5% of MANA that is released.
    Decentraland's Vesting Dashboard

  2. LANDs that are acquired can be repurposed to fit the needs of the DAO, or be rented out, adding another potential source of revenue stream.

  3. The balance sheet of the DAO will include, among other financial assets, LAND, leading to a diversification of the treasury.

  4. Floor price of LANDs may be supported in the short term. In the longer term, whilst the DAO may act as a quasi-market maker, the impact is not expected to be huge. For reference, the average monthly volume from the past 6 months (October 2022 to March 2023) in FIAT terms is $320k USD. At today’s price of $0.55USD/MANA, the 40k MANA per month cap will represent 7% of the volume.

Implementation Pathways

  1. The DAO Committee will have autonomy to decide as to whether they prefer to work with the dApps team to create a smart contract which follows specifications, or to execute the purchase manually.

  2. Include LANDs as part of the DAO’s treasury assets on the transparency dashboard and all related documents.

Conclusion

In light of Genesis City LANDs/ESTATEs being underutilised and the floor price reaching an “undervalued/fairly valued” valuation, The DAO has come to a decision based on discussions and finally a poll, to purchase LANDs/ESTATEs for repurposing.

The purchase agreement will follow parameters that have been agreed upon by the community to ensure prudence in expenditure.

The purchase and ownership of LAND/ESTATEs will expand the DAO capabilities in 5 ways, primarily:

  1. To organise events/activities such as town halls etc.
  2. Generate passive income to the DAO by rentals.
  3. Provide LAND to grantees who require space to deploy.
  4. Allow the DAO to create scenes all over Genesis City that may lead to a better experience for users, such as kiosks that may provide ‘ATM’ services etc.
  5. Possibly used as rewards/prizes for any events organised by the DAO.

Annex (1) - Should the DAO Buy Back LAND?

Annex (2) - the ceiling price PER PARCEL allowed by the DAO to purchase from the marketplace.

Annex (3) - The total amount of MANA that the DAO is allowed to spend MONTHLY on purchasing LAND.

Annex (4) - Whether contiguous LANDs should be given priority.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

1 Like
2

For anyone who doesn’t want to read through every little detail. Here’s a summary.

Abstract
Community is for the idea of purchasing LAND in Genesis City.

Motivation
Discussions have been had over the past year to agree to this, and the bear market has presented a window of opportunity.

Specification
5 requirements are set as parameter to ensure DAO funds are used with prudence during the purchase.

  1. 4k price ceiling per plot.
  2. Monthly budget of 40k MANA.
  3. Contiguous LANDs will be given priority.
  4. Purchase made by DAO, end of month.
  5. Currency of payment in MANA only.

Impacts
1.Total amount of DAO funds used for purchase monthly is 2.5%.
2. Potential source of revenue via rentals.
3. LAND included in balance sheet.
4. Floor price supported in short term but DAO will only represent 7% of daily volume.

Implementation Pathways

  1. DAO committee will choose best way forward to execute purchase.
  2. LANDs to be included in dashboard.

Conclusion
I’d suggest to read the conclusion above as it also summarizes what the proposal is aimed at achieving.

3

Hey, thanks for proposal. Have question:

  1. Purchase is to be made at the end of each month, at any point in the day(GMT), at the discretion of the DAO Committee.

Purchases will be made at discretion of DAO Committee ? Can there be in theory situation when DAO Committee can use their right to buy “at their own discretion” and for example say that this month they will not buy ?

4

There are plans in place to discuss with the community on the use cases for acquired LANDs.
Timing should be around close to the end of this governance proposal, once we, as a community can confirm the direction in which we are headed with the proposal.

This is part of a multi phased plan to bring more value to DCL, the DAO and LANDs by assimilating them.

The DAO is the largest/ second largest entity in DCL. If there’s anyone that can showcase fully the way LANDs can be utilized to interact with its users, it should be us.

While the Foundation is working on other aspects of DCL such as the explorer, dApps, UI/UX and Worlds, we, as the DAO can start working with infrastructure that is already stable and available to us.

1 Like
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Hi web3nit, thanks for asking.

A short answer will be No. The DAO Committee has to follow the instructions clearly laid out under ‘Specifications’.

The only part that is to their discretion is the TIMING in which they purchase LANDs on the day itself,(last day of the month), everything else, has to be in accordance to ‘Specifications’.

For further clarification,
If you are also wondering whether they are allowed to decide whether to “lets spend 20k this month only, and 30 on the next since its under 40k”, No they aren’t allowed, in accordance to (2) of ‘Specifications’

1 Like
6

Thank you for clarification. :handshake:

7

There is no reason the DAO should be buying land indefinitely, and this is a waste of DAO funds after acquiring a small stash of land for use.

Saying “the community supports this” is disengenous. the community doesn’t give a shit. The small percentage of the community that owns land has has VP wants to use their VP to make the DAO support their financial speculation.

This kind of proposal is destructive.

Short-term selfishness and greed are what this platform is built on, so I am not surprised to see it continue.

There is no logical reason to waste money supporting the floor instead of building things that make other people excited about DCL.

8

Hi jar0d, as with our discussions, there is no plan to keep this indefinitely. A yearly review will be conducted to gauge the sentiment of the community as to whether the purchase proposal is still relevant.

To address your second comment, my question is who decides what the “community” is? Are only the people u deem as community members applicable to vote? What about other communities that you don’t mingle with?

I disagree with you. You think that short term greed and selfishness is what this platform is built upon. On the contrary, I think that us as an organisation, making use of these bear market the best we can, is what will keep us afloat down the road. That includes capitalizing on depressed prices to purchase LANDs at a good price for usage that can be implemented in future.

Maybe you disagree with that view and see the approach as selfish. It’s within your right as a member and I will not force you to change your stance.

“Buy when there’s blood on the streets” is what one wise man said.

9

This is a very well-written bit of debate technique, but it fails to acknowledge the reality of the Decentraland DAO and how the majority of the Decentraland community does not participate in it.

I do not need to gatekeep who is and who is not part of the community to confidently say that your previous polls getting under 100 votes in total does not give you the ability to claim “the community” is in favor of anything. It is a very disingenuous way to present the situation, and if you must rely on such lazy deception, I don’t think you believe the merits of the idea are going to be convincing enough on their own.

The DAO does not exist to flip land or be a Metaverse landlord.

This is a flawed argument and I find it ironic you would write it after dismissing the idea that greed is the primary motivation behind this proposal.

10

I did not decide who can and cannot vote for the proposal, and I also can’t force it upon anyone to vote because members may not feel strongly about the topic. What I did was to put out the poll and structure it as best as possible. The community engaged and decided without invalidating it and i compiled it into a proposal. All of which follows the rules that the DAO has set.

There has been no mention of the DAO existing to flip land. Being a metaverse landlord, yes, because anyone who owns a single parcel is technically a landlord.

You assume that greed is the primary driver, but won’t you also agree that prudence is when u buy when prices are down instead of up? Perhaps you and I interpret the sentence differently.

11

Voting no because I don’t agree with the monthly cap of 40K and I don’t believe the DAO committee should have the sole discretion on which land to buy. This changes the scope of the DAO Committee from a body that purely exists to execute our decisions on chain to becoming land purchasers on behalf of the DAO. I think we should backtrack a little on this. I also believe the DAO gobbling up the floor price for estates and single parcels will increase the barrier to entry for those who want to buy land.

1 Like
12

Hi CheddarQueso, thanks for voting. As you have mentioned, the DAO Committee exists purely to execute our decisions on chain, and that includes making the purchase on behalf of the DAO. This is to improve efficacy in terms of execution, and while yes, it’d be ideal if we as a DAO can decide on which LANDs to purchase, imagine a scenario where the DAO has to go through the voting process (polls>draft>governance) to decide. That will amount to an entire month. What if, after all that decision making, a buyer comes in and purchases the LAND? Imagine that happening twice, thrice or more every month. I am no market expert, but i believe the participation rate for voting will plummet after awhile due to decision fatigue.

13

That need to be defined with a clear algorithm, the DAO Committee should not have to take any decision on its own.

14

Are the parameters mentioned in the proposal insufficient in terms of creating an algo? If its the case, what would be your suggestion? I am not familiar with the technicalities involved so help from an expert like yourself would be much appreciated.

If you need to reach me directly, it can be done on Discord as. I’ve added you as friend. Otherwise, here is fine

15

I think if this is really going to happen we should also discuss what is going to be done about the VP being taken out of circulation with the purchasing of LAND by the DAO. We as a community should be able to vote on how the DAO can delegate that VP fairly.

1 Like
16

Purchase of LAND in Genesis City

This proposal is now in status: PASSED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 82% 9,810,207 VP (141 votes)
  • No 17% 2,084,585 VP (8 votes)
  • Abstain 1% 1 VP (1 votes)
17

Purchase of LAND in Genesis City

This proposal has been ENACTED by a DAO Committee Member (0x88013d7ed946dd8292268a6ff69165a97a89a639)