I am personally against this OIP, and here I am going to detail why.
First, as the Olympus treasury grows, we as a DAO must be increasingly on guard against selfish individuals who would seek to siphon funds from it for either their own gain or the gain of causes they support. To be clear I am NOT saying that is what is going on here. What I am saying is that the best way to prevent this kind of treasury abuse is to set a strong precedent that any treasury allocation must have a chance of generating a positive return for the treasury, even if that chance is a long shot.
Second, to be blunt, Olympus is not a charity. Olympus is a DAO formed with the goal of creating the reserve currency for DeFi. This mission does not include supporting efforts against climate change, or longevity research, or even open source building in the ETH ecosystem. None of the planned donations have anything to do with Olympus’ core mission, and accordingly donating to them set a dangerous precedent that money can be siphoned from the treasury to assist with causes that are outside of OHM’s purview.
Third, while the Gitcoin Grants program is absolutely a legitimate program, donating to them so they can develop open source technology brings up a good question: Why are we not instead providing grants to engineers/devs who want to develop for Olympus itself? That would seem an obvious way that we could use this money to generate far more value for Olympus.
IMO what Olympus is doing with Tyche (providing OHM stakers an easy way to redirect their staking proceeds to charitable causes of their choice) is a better way to let Ohmies give to charity. If Ohmies want to support charitable causes, they should do so with their own funds and not the funds of the treasury.
So in conclusion, I am voting against OIP-49 because:
- I believe it’s important to set precedent that the treasury should not be used for things with no chance of generating a return.
- None of the mentioned causes are within OHM’s purview.
- The money could be better use to fund the efforts of OHM devs themselves.