Traditional finance markets, index funds, and savings accounts all proffer to the retail investor “keep stashing your paycheck away; retire in 40 years and then do as you please.”
The majority of people do not break this mold, but that speaks to the system they’re trapped within, not their character or work ethic. The people languish in underpaid jobs (sometimes more than one), lack the range of benefits they deserve, and struggle to provide for themselves and the people they love. We deserve better than 40 years of this.
Decentralized finance (defi) provides an antidote to this poisonous system in which the elites siphon labor and value from the people who generate it and line their bank accounts. Defi bypasses the gatekeepers and grants us tools to regain control of and freedom over our money; notably, programmable money without borders, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) to build fairer social governance and voting systems, and staking to generate passive income while securing the utilities and services that bring value to our lives.
As defi expands into real-world uses like drilling water wells or securing personal medical records, it ignites excitement for the public good it can spread as it matures.
GOLD1 was custom designed to transform the defi landscape to which we’ve grown accustomed, both by its unique contract mechanics as well as the Golden DAO for which it is the lifeblood.
The foundational philosophy of the Golden DAO is that everyone works together as one to reward people and projects that concretely spread public good. Financially incentivizing and investing in public good engineers a positive feedback loop wherein people who do the most good for others are compensated, beneficiaries of that good work have their lives improved, and those elevations empower more people to contribute to the public good and invest in helping others.
The sole purpose of this “golden ecosystem” is to give power back to the people and thereby, for the first time in the modern age, embody a market of recursive public goods funding that serves all of us, not only the elites. Let’s look at the specifics of how it will accomplish this grandiose paradigm shift.
The Design
GOLD1 is an ERC-20 token running on the Ethereum network. Its contract has been renounced since inception, which means it cannot be altered. For every $1 million in market cap reached, the liquidity will be locked by a third party for an additional four months; as of this writing, it is locked for 3 years.
Additionally, the max wallet size for GOLD1 is set to 1% of the total supply of 10 billion, which has been fully circulating since the beginning (no inflation). The 100 million token wallet limit makes commanding a majority portion of the supply virtually impossible, even if someone were able to purchase more than one max wallet.
On this point, recall the aforementioned ethos of GOLD1 and the Golden DAO: it’s in every holder’s best interest to act in the pursuit of public good and growth of the DAO because that also rewards them the most. This means everyone has the same goal of simultaneously helping others and helping themselves, which heavily disincentivizes attempting to manipulate votes for paltry personal gain. The richest wins are those we achieve and share together.
Moving past the safety of it, the most intriguing function of GOLD1 is its 4% tax levied on every interaction with the contract. That means buying, selling, transferring, staking (minimum lockup time is currently 1 week), unstaking, and claiming staking rewards all incur this tax.
Why would anyone want to subject themselves to this tax? How are GOLD1 and the Golden DAO different?
GOLD1's carefully tuned volume-based tax provides myriad benefits; it upholds trendline liquidity, funds future DAO growth, and directly rewards all who stake GOLD1.
Our Golden DAO establishes a new standard by incorporating Soulbound Token-based leadership as part of its governance model, restricting governance votes to only those who stake GOLD1 and hold MAIA, giving DAO members the ability to manage a portfolio of assets to further grow and maintain value, and carving a new path for DAOs by acquiring other projects and incorporating them into the golden ecosystem.
Let’s dig in.
1% of the ETH tax goes directly into the liquidity pool (LP) and that LP redemption token is then burned, which ensures stable, healthy growth of liquidity that can’t be withdrawn. The remaining 3% of the ETH tax is sent to the Gold Mine.
The Gold Mine accumulates taxes until it reaches 11 ETH, at which point it disperses a total of 10 ETH to various subwallets, leaving a 1 ETH buffer in place. Per the whitepaper, these Gold Mine taxes are sliced into four pieces.
Note: the Gold Mine dispersion threshold was originally 10 ETH, but was raised to 11 ETH before MAIA was renounced in order to allow for potentially higher gas fees in the future; it is unlikely for gas to be 1 ETH, but it’s a wise provision nonetheless.
A 0.9% portion of the treasury is allocated entirely to the stakers of GOLD1, otherwise known as MAIA holders. MAIA is the governance token (renounced as of 8/22/22) given by the DAO in exchange for your staked GOLD1 to represent your stake at 1:1, essentially acting as a voucher that enables voting on DAO proposals. Holders receive 1 vote per MAIA, and there is currently no limit on how much MAIA one wallet can hold. All staked GOLD1 is effectively “out of circulation,” which leads to greater chart stability, token scarcity, and slight price appreciation over time. As of this writing, 61.83% of the entire GOLD1 supply is staked; an incredible display of investor confidence and belief in our shared vision.
A 0.16% portion of the treasury is allocated to the Valar, who are democratically elected community leaders who handle various operational matters for the DAO and filter through proposals to approve for MAIA holders to vote on. Valar are rewarded separately for their hard work, which enables MAIA holders to focus on quality proposals instead of constantly voting on monotonous day-to-day matters. The Valar hold the unique VALAR token, which is a Soulbound Token (SBT), meaning it can’t be transferred and acts as a sort of digital curriculum vitae. SBT-based governance and leadership is a major difference that sets the Golden DAO apart from others in the space. New Valar are carefully considered before going to MAIA holders for a vote; each additional Valus dilutes rewards for the others, and Valar who may stray from the DAO can be voted out and have their VALAR token rescinded.
A 1.2% portion of the treasury is allocated to ecosystem development. This will fund any future endeavors the DAO sees fit to patronize, as well as build out additional branches of value generation for the DAO. This malleability ensures that the DAO has room to evolve over time and continue to meet the needs of its investors and take advantage of future opportunities. Setting aside funds and preparing for an ever-changing world is a prudent way to make sure we never stop learning, growing, and improving together.
The final 0.73% portion of the treasury is allocated to DAO portfolio and acquisitions. Yet another unique aspect of the Golden DAO, managing a portfolio of decentralized crypto assets yields understandable benefits. We can weather bear markets by building a fortress of diverse assets, and we can take advantage of bull runs by adjusting investment ratios as needed. We can take profits by converting to stables, and of course we can glean gains from projects we invest in or acquire and distribute them to stakers.
Acquiring projects has two main benefits: we get to lift up hidden gems that may have been missed or left behind, affording them renewed life for their vision, and we all win by those projects and people growing, generating value for the DAO, and becoming one with our community. Like we discussed earlier, the more people and projects we help, the more value is generated by the people, which leads to further investments and acquisitions and spreading of good, and the cycle continues on and snowballs in magnitude as it goes.
The Reward Mechanism
Now that we’ve established a baseline for how GOLD1, MAIA, VALAR, and the Golden DAO symbiotically interact with people, let’s dive into the juicy details of how GOLD1’s flavor of staking provides us with sustainable passive income.
Rewards in GOLD1, dispersed to MAIA holders, are volume-based due to GOLD1’s unique tax structure. We all know “the money has to come from somewhere,” so we’re rightly skeptical of wild, arbitrary APY claims others in the space have offered even until recently; with GOLD1, we can clearly see where the money comes from at every stage of its growth.
On July 26th, 2022, the first round of staking rewards was dispersed to early stakers:
The Gold Mine had built up to 60 ETH due to it being the first dispersion, 20 ETH of which went directly to stakers. Originally, stakers were comprised of MAIA holders (0.8382% rewards) + VALAR holders (0.1618% rewards) combined into a 1% share, or 33% of the total Gold Mine, and ecosystem + acquisitions/portfolio were each to receive 1%. GB detailed some updates shortly beforehand, showing that stakers would indeed receive the projected 20+ ETH but that ecosystem development was being greatly sped up and received additional ETH in support of that growth.
As we’ve already noted earlier, the three-way split mentioned here ended up changing into a four-way split, upgrading MAIA rewards and trimming back on portfolio to prioritize the golden ecosystem. This evolution has taken place during the manual phase of the DAO, ensuring everything works optimally before fully automatizing it, which will be happening very shortly.
We looked back at these details in order to contextualize where we are now. Although the staking rate is even better now, let’s use the math with which GW calculated those figures to keep things simple.
Stakers enjoyed a more than 2% return on investment (ROI) given $500k in volume. GOLD1’s utility reaching that volume on a daily basis is just a matter of time, so 2% ROI per day is already excellent passive income.
To be specific, this 2% refers to the value of your stake. If you purchase around $1086 worth of GOLD1, you pay the 4% tax, and again when staking it, leaving you with $1000 in staked GOLD1 (MAIA). To calculate the total tax we’d pay on a certain amount in a given number of interactions, we used the formula:
1 — (0.96^n), where n = number of interactions with GOLD1.
In this example, each day you would accrue $20 worth of GOLD1. In only one week, you’ve made money. Naturally, GOLD1’s price will fluctuate, but the massive amount of supply staked, the robust foundation of liquidity, portfolio and acquisition revenues, and taxes that constantly feed directly back into the system ensure long-term sustainability.
To clarify, this $20 would arrive through multiple instances of the 11 ETH Gold Mine dispersion threshold being met (each dispersion being 10 ETH worth with the remainder 1 ETH being a gas buffer, as previously noted). A “2% daily return” is actually comprised of a number of smaller rewards dispersions that total the 2% we’re discussing here; we use the daily total just for simplicity.
Of course, this is all notwithstanding the inevitable price appreciation GOLD1 will enjoy over time. Let’s say that, today, you have 1,000,000 MAIA and you receive a 1% reward of 10,000 GOLD1 at the next Gold Mine dispersion. Currently, that’s worth about $3 at a $3 million market cap; at a very modest $300 million market cap, your “1%” staking reward is now worth much more at $300. When you receive a 1% reward at $300 million market cap, it’ll still be valued at 1% (now $300) of your MAIA value, but you’ll “only” receive 100 GOLD1. GB made it clear who this project benefits most very early on:
The true beauty and power of the golden ecosystem are that it works whether you buy GOLD1 at $3 million market cap or $30 billion. Stakers will always be rewarded with passive income, and the example we looked at was “only” between 1% and 2% per day with $500k in daily volume. Imagine the staking ROI with daily volume in multiple millions of dollars and beyond.
Once we have enough money invested in the golden ecosystem for long enough, staking rewards alone are enough to retire or comfortably support most people.
The magnitude of such a system cannot be understated, but remember that our DAO and staking only comprise one ring of the golden ecosystem; as illustrated in the image we opened this piece with, there are four rings in total.
How could it get even better than this? What comes next?
As of this writing, the answer is that we don’t know for sure yet, but we have some extremely exciting possibilities to explore.
The Vision
If we consider each ring of the golden ecosystem to represent a principle, the first ring, our DAO, is all about the people and community, the foundation of any successful project.
Referring again to GW’s post from June 21st, we can put together a general understanding of what the upcoming rings will be designed to do:
Treasury management and the ability to enhance the portfolio and the development of your Golden Ecosystem will be represented by the addition of 3 more rings.
We should also pay close attention to the line:
Becoming 1 calls for 1 currency, a currency that is worth its weight in gold.
It’s reasonable to surmise that at least one ring will involve the logistics of acquiring other projects and integrating them into the golden ecosystem, as well as using treasury funds to invest in assets that bolster the DAO’s resiliency and its ability to constantly appreciate. This ring would represent the principles of growth and spreading good to as many people as possible.
The full explanation of what these aspects aim to achieve is laid out in the portfolio section of the whitepaper, but for now, let’s briefly consider the effects of the DAO investing in staking assets:
We’ve seen how uniquely powerful GOLD1 staking is; now imagine multiple staking assets passively earning rewards for the DAO, which will then distribute said rewards to MAIA holders as supplementary passive income. It’s adding layers of icing to the cake. We’ll take a closer look at this topic once we have more details available to dissect.
{{Update}} The second ring/piece of the golden ecosystem was revealed to be our own aggregator (details here) with a 0.2% fee, charged only on buys and not sells, that feeds directly into the Gold Mine. Top volume projects on the swap will also receive rewards; our Golden Swap gives back to the people. {{Original article follows unchanged}}
Another possible ring could represent the principle of accessibility, a major issue that complicates the mass adoption of defi. As we discussed at the onset of this work, everyone deserves freedom from financial insecurity and the ability to focus on living the happiest and most fulfilling life they can. No one deserves to be treated less than for decades just to start living.
GOLD1 can provide everyone the ability to earn, but that ability is limited by one’s access to defi. One solution to this could be an automated dapp or extension of the DAO that acts as a portal for someone to quickly and securely swap between fiat and ETH, create or link a wallet, and interact with GOLD1 and the Golden DAO.
Even if this is not a ring of its own, it could be a fruitful topic for the DAO to address through acquisitions or investments. The larger and richer our community becomes, the more we can achieve as one.
Now that we’ve pondered a couple of potential guiding principles for our golden ecosystem, what could the last ring be? Let’s return to the second statement from GW’s scene 4 post referencing one currency for the people worth its weight in gold.
GOLD1 is rich in value on its own and can certainly provide people with financial freedom through its rewards mechanism, but what if we read “currency” more literally?
For additional background, consider this excerpted message from GB, forwarded by a Valar, in response to questions about transactions the community noted in the marketing wallet:
We should pay very close attention to the idea of “a digital bank, but run by the people,” as well as how ETH is referred to as “the victim of the centralized system and thug ‘elites’ we so strongly fight to break free from.” These ideas are central to GOLD1’s mission and perfectly align with the narrative we opened this article with.
As an aside, GB also commented on how we began with and built from nothing but 1.5 ETH, demonstrating “a repeat of the former, but done correctly this time.” This quote directly inspired a portion of our recent narrative exploration looking at the current history and timeline of GOLD1. We know what GB was referring to here.
Now, recall the portion of the GOLD1 tax that goes toward portfolio and acquisitions:
We see that the whitepaper also mentions stablecoin administration. GB replied to an inquiry about what that meant here:
After some thought, I gave my view at the time and outlined one possibility I envisioned: a truly decentralized stablecoin called Golden USD, or GUSD.
I elaborated on that musing when asked how it could be structured.
As difficult as it is to design a decentralized stablecoin, we already know how deeply entrenched stables are in crypto and how crucial a role they play in investor confidence. USDC and USDT are well-backed for the most part, but our decentralized vision for the people requires decentralized stability no matter where we are in the world, reliant on no centralized source, and those principles of stability and trust could make up this final ring.
We’ve covered a lot of ground and dug deep into specifics surrounding: how GOLD1’s design rewards stakers and longer holders with generous, sustainable passive income; how the Golden DAO is designed for the people as a means to both grow wealth and spread public good; and, how the golden ecosystem is expertly positioned for long-term evolution. Let’s tie everything we’ve looked at into the title of this work, “The People’s Market.”
Recently, I was thinking about all of these very topics and what the scope of this project could possibly be. What we have and know to be coming is already exciting and different, but how zoomed out is the vision for GOLD1 that GW and GB have? This is an excerpt of the conclusions I came to:
The prospect of such a massive psychological rebranding of crypto as being for the people was exceptionally energizing. As it turns out, GB clapped and later replied directly:
The energy contained in this messaging is as good a place as any to conclude our exploration today. GOLD1 is specifically designed for the people, to reclaim creative agency over our lives, and set free the limitless human potential currently latent beneath the stresses of life. Together, united, the people can move mountains.
Thank you so much for your time,
-timshel
