Treasury Proposal for ACS Campaign

Governance Treasury Proposals
82

glad to see this type of discussion popping up more

I’ve recently started voicing concerns over the governance model also: lot’s of good ideas but no real governance. Its one of the only crypto related areas I can claim any domain knowledge in as I’m an actuary irl. lol

But yeah, seeing a lot of what you’ve commented:

  1. Lack of participation outside insider/vested interest (not ment as negative terms but I don’t know how to describe it better),

  2. Creating psuedo-governance without clear definitions: what powers and limitations do ambassadors have; what is the actual governance model behind the new community council, etc.

So refreshing to get a view from someone that has been closely involved with the program.

In the end, I think intentions are in the right place, but execution is falling behind those intentions.

Final note: it’s extremely refreshing to see the dialogue here changing to a less abrasive and accusatory tone compared to recent weeks of these discussions. Hopefully we can keep this up.

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83

This idea indeed makes sense to me, good one!
And maybe adding more details for vesting schedule, project validation scheme, etc, would make this even more sense.

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84

I confirm, I have no economic and moral ties with anyone in the crypto world, I am a simple and independent Astar investor, I must say that your reflections are valid, and I thank you for raising the level of the discussion so much. I don’t speak English well, so I won’t answer point by point, but I will try to summarize my thoughts on the campaign and my previous comment. I haven’t been following the forum for long, I started when the management of the project had in my opinion taken a direction that was not at all acceptable… it must be said… the success of soneium is not necessarily correlated to the success of ASTAR… ASTR is not a gas tax… even with yesterday’s proposal, the surge, and this latest one, we are looking for a real utility, or at least many small ones that together can bring benefits… I expressed my support for the campaign both on a fundamental and economic level side, purposely ignoring the concerns you highlighted, not because underestimated them, but because I no longer believe it is the time to expect organic growth… astar is facing a prolonged period of confusion, even on the part of the owners, apparently, the positive news does not undermine this pessimism and that the price action is really depressing… for these reasons, combined with an overall market momentum completely different from the examples you gave, I believe the campaign can bring that shock and restore confidence. growing organically is a virtuosity that cannot be afforded in this period. It’s risky, it’s true, but I think that if it’s not the last resort we’re close…and I underline once again, although Astar and soneium are separate entities, to be effective the message of union must necessarily pass from both sides, it is absurd to declare itself a key asset of a protocol that barely mentions you… astar needs to shake itself off this veil of uncertainty over us, we have to think outside our heads, we are holders, we love Astar, we know it, we know the team’s commitment, try taking a walk outside, you will realize that the majority part is not aware of anything… soneium is just another layer 2 for the mass, and we, unless I missed something, are aiming for that…

85

Hello, I am a holder of Astar for more than 3 years. In my opinion, this offer is focused on increasing TVL and usage of Soneium, not increasing the value of Astar. If you want to pay incentives, you should only do so for Astar. If you incentivize by valuing multiple assets, you’ll only get short term benefits from airdrop farmers. If you incentivize only Astar, it will increase the pressure for new purchases to get the incentive. Please reconsider your proposal for long term holders.
I apologize for the lack of clarity due to the translator.

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86

@rhee , I am glad to see you here for the first time in a long time.
And that was a great comment.

I’m an Ecosystem Agent, but I’m basically saying what I think, because I’m willing to stop being an Agent because of what I say (although I think I’m being moderate).

Leaving me and governance aside, on the main topic, I think you are right that there is not much transparency in the criteria for project selection. However, when you are targeting many projects like this one, I think it is reasonable to present the Foundation as a starting point because it is difficult to present each project transparently or to discuss it in the community.

And by proposing a campaign like this once to the Forum, rather than starting it out of the blue, the community can provide input on it. If there is a project you don’t agree with, you can ask questions, and if there are other projects that should be recommended, you can suggest them.
I don’t think this is the wrong approach, as it is important to get up to speed with the launch of Soneium.

Also, you are right about the L2 tokens, but the ASTR is not exactly the same. Because while the project you use as an example here has a much larger airdrop portion of the allocation at TGE, ASTRs are tokens that are already in circulation. The ratios are very different.
And, Soneium has said it will not issue tokens, so there will be few people coming in expecting airdrops of L2 tokens.

However, I think your concerns are paramount and vesting is necessary. I also think you need to provide a clearer reason for the amount of rewards, especially since the community has voiced a lot of concerns about the amount of rewards.

I feel a more detailed explanation on this is needed. Does this mean that you would change the amount of ACS allocated to users on a project by project basis?
If so, how would you measure the criteria for each breakdown?

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87

Proposal for the Soneium Meme Spark Contest in ACS by SoneFi

TL:DR

The Soneium Meme Spark Season Contest is designed to achieve these goals:

  1. Skyrocket ASTR’s holders base on Soneium.
  2. Empower ASTR with an utility on-chain case
  3. Mitigate Post-ACS campaign sell-off pressure
  4. Elevate Soneium’s native TVL
  5. Attract massive users to Soneium
  6. Catalyze the Creation of countless meme assets
  7. Cultivate a thriving meme economy on Soneium with ASTR
  8. Align with Soneium and Sony’s vision for Web3 entertainment

The ACS proposal represents a vital opportunity to elevate Soneium’s TVL and foster robust ecosystem growth. To effectively capture marketing attention and maximize influence for both Astar and Soneium, we must leverage the explosive popularity of memes, particularly in light of Trump’s election and the emergence of the $Trump meme as a cultural phenomenon.

Embracing Entertainment Culture

Entertainment is at the heart of Soneium’s narrative. As memecoins invigorate the crypto landscape, we have a unique chance to harness this trend to enhance ACS influence and ensure sustainable TVL growth.

Proposal Highlights

We propose allocating 2% of the total ACS budget to launch a ‘Soneium Meme Spark Contest.’ This initiative will encompass:

Meme Creation: Encourage creativity and participation.
Meme Bonding: Foster community engagement and investment.
Meme Buyers: Incentivize and reward active participants.
Trading Competition: Drive excitement and market activity.

SoneFi’s Role

SoneFi will curate, execute and manage this campaign base on SoneFi meme launchpad, integrating ASTR as the bonding curve token, and calculate all metrics to distribute rewards fairly

The Methodology

1.ASTR as a Bonding Curve Token:SoneFi will integrate ASTR as a bonding curve token, creating a Meme/ASTR liquidity pair similar to pairs on the DEX.

2.Purchasing Memes with ASTR:Users can purchase memes using ASTR to pair with the Meme

3.Market Cap Threshold:Once the meme market cap reaches a designated amount, such as $15,000, the Meme/ASTR pair will be transferred to the SoneFi swap.

4.100 years ASTR/meme pair Lock: The lock is for Meme/ASTR pair contract on Soneium, so users can still sell memes to ASTR, or use ASTR to buy memes in the SoneFi swap, just none can remove the liquidity.

The four steps will use ASTR to buy Memes and lock ASTR in the Meme liquidity pair for 100 years, preventing withdrawals. This creates a deflationary effect and ensures sustainable TVL growth for Soneium and ASTR.

Conclusion

This strategic investment of just 2% promises to deliver substantial returns for both Soneium and ASTR, most important is that can expand Sony’s entertainment strategy on Web3 by leveraging Meme cultures.
By utilizing ASTR as a bonding curve token and locking its pairing with memes for a century, we will drive engagement, attract creators and investors, and distinctly position Soneium within the crypto ecosystem.
Let’s harness the power of meme culture, elevate our community, and propel Soneium and ASTR to new heights.

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88

:clap: :clap: :clap:

What I especialy resonate with is CLEAR COMMITED PATHWAY, HONEST STRATEGY, REDEFINE CORE VALUE all that for ASTR…
Half ashamed I agree with you I fall under category you so nicely explained: “it was not just financial investment, but intelectual and emotional(been told that many times this should not be my narrative) stake in project’s success”
I know this will sound very self-centered but please remember I am not invested just to squeeze profit for me and leave as I would have sold long ago. As I invested in Lockdrop and could sell immediately after token was live. Wonder how many team members still hold some ASTR(all the respect to ones that kept some I know RL also has expenses) since then. In my opinion this is where trust should start. From ground up, to build a solid house. If you see team members hodling/buying /investing in ASTR it gives higher value to token.
What I actually want to say is focus should be given to current Astar/Soneium holders/stakers/NFT holders/DeFi/governance and others. Imagine a chain that rewards its current users for being active. Wouldn’t you want to join that chain? Why reward bots and multiple wallet users that participate in events and dump all the rewards on market the same day they receive them.

I however with all due respect disagree with:

I find this quorum to be too high. Maybe 25% could be set for start. And we see after few proposals if it can be set higher. I think even 25% will be hard. I had similar experience in some other DAO where we had to reach to whales to help reach quorum. Also as @Maarten wrote I haven’t yet seen any CEX being active or participate in governance. Most validators would do, but CEXs not. Maybe we could have teams(since no validators) that are part of dApp staking to also be active in Astar governance as that is best way to follow chain progress development and community opinions. Since we community do, why not people that develop and are funded on Astar/Soneium(future). And they would engage with community here so we could get to know them better.

Also I am against burning any token from treasury but rather keep it there and use it when time comes. Maybe also swap in smaller portions using HYDRO DCA into BTC and stables to diversify treasury and prepare for when bear market knocks.

I appologize to all that read my whole post for not being as much ACS campaign oriented, but since I expressed my opinion on that above I just wanted to express on utility and expension of ASTR.

89

Although this is a VERY important point I don’t want to give my opinions in this thread because it is not the central topic, however, thanks for creating it mate and for breaking the silence between all of us.

Now, regarding the ACS campaign, it is very difficult not to have divided opinions on this point. For me, what is paramount is how we generate a significant push in the use of $ASTR and Soneium, specifically and, ACS does just that, which is why I am inclined to support the proposal.

On the other hand, what You mentions is also true, there is one variable here that is in our favor and that is, we already have holders, the token is listed in several places, there are people buying and selling on a daily basis so the outlook is very different than what usually happens after an Airdrop.

I would like to comment more but I feel that we are already repeating information, I prefer to see new points of view.

90

Oh, we haven’t met each other, but still It’s a pleasure to meet you.

I’m Rhee, one of the first-batch ambassadors who have witnessed the entire journey since 2019, from Plasm → Shiden → Astar → Astar zkEVM → Soneium, and having served as Head of Ecosystem at Astar Foundation, your perspective carries significant weight.

While this proposal might seem novel to some, I would like to urge you that such similar initiatives have been proposed multiple times before (please, dyor). What’s consistently troubling is that these proposals, despite passing, have rarely delivered tangible benefits to the ecosystem.

This current proposal appears particularly concerning. Rather than being a genuine bootstrapping strategy for Astar (but apparently it’s designed for Soneium), it seems more like an artificial mechanism to inject liquidity into Soneium by leveraging Astar’s token assets. It feels like an externally imposed strategy that forcibly redirects Astar’s resources into a nascent chain without a clear, organic value proposition.

Such internally motivated attempts to justify moving Astar’s assets rarely contribute positively to the ecosystem’s genuine growth. These manufactured utility strategies often create more complexity and potential risk than actual value.

If this proposal passes, I sincerely hope it achieves the positive outcomes its proponents envision. However, my primary sentiment is hoping that it does not pass, as I believe it does not serve the ecosystem’s best interests. This is just my belief, so let’s see how it goes if it really passes.

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91

Thank you, I respect all of your opinions.

Let’s keep raising our voices. There’s no right or wrong, as we all came from different backgrounds and have different origins of knowledge =]

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92

Hi Rhee,

While you’re opening a lot of topics and discussions, I’ll focus on your suggestion related to governance participation and the proposed quorum. To me, this doesn’t make sense within the context of this proposal.

Governance participation has always been a challenge for blockchain projects. For example, if we look at Polkadot and OpenGov, current DOT participation ranges between 2–3.5% of the total supply (approximately 30–50M DOT voting on referendums out of a 1.5B total supply). Even with Polkadot’s much older and more mature governance system, participation barely exceeds 5%. So how could Astar realistically expect to achieve 50% or even 25% community participation? That’s an unrealistic expectation.

Additionally, as Maarten mentioned, a significant portion of the token supply is held on CEXs, which do not participate in governance. If over 50% of the supply is held on CEXs (which is plausible), it’s technically impossible to reach a 50% quorum.

In any case, imposing a minimum quorum on referendums as a requirement for “acceptance” by the community is equivalent to doing nothing in governance—just sitting on our hands and hoping the price increases by magic.

Personally, I believe in actively using the treasury to fund initiatives, rather than hoarding it like we’ve done for the past three years. As Plautus once said, “You have to spend money to make money.”

If we compare to Polkadot (even though their ecosystem, market cap, and treasury are much larger), they spent over $150M (likely more) in 2024. In contrast, Astar’s treasury spent 18,226,806 ASTR (approximately $973,129) in 2024, of which 5.4M ASTR was allocated to LP on Hydration. Additionally, 6,383,958 ASTR (around $340,896) was spent in 2024, with 2.2M ASTR allocated to LP on Hydration. You can find the outflow data here.

From a user perspective, this might seem like a large amount, but in the blockchain industry, it’s not significant. This expenditure could easily be absorbed by the current trading volume and market makers, even if campaign participants sold their rewards (which, to be clear, I don’t support). Instead, we should incentivize and educate participants to hold ASTR on-chain by offering them additional opportunities within the Soneium ecosystem in the future.

Some of your other comments make sense, but I’ll respond to them later or address them in separate replies.

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93

Hi @wurontea

First of all, thank you for joining the discussion—it’s great to see OG members sharing their opinions. You don’t need to apologize; we truly appreciate you contributing to the debate.

We seem to have different perspectives on this matter, particularly regarding the flywheel effect that Jay mentioned.

The main objective of this campaign is to attract new investors from the Ethereum ecosystem to join Soneium and purchase ASTR tokens. The targeted users primarily hold Ethereum-based assets or stablecoins, and getting them to participate and commit their assets will generate two key benefits:

  1. Growth in TVL and Campaign Visibility:
  • As Soneium’s TVL grows, it will attract more attention to the ecosystem.
  • Increased attention leads to greater awareness of the campaign, which brings in more users.
  • The campaign will highlight ASTR as a privileged asset with higher multipliers and APR, encouraging participants to buy ASTR tokens to maximize their points.
  • This could result in a positive impact on ASTR’s price (:chart_with_upwards_trend:).
  1. Improved ASTR Liquidity Depth:
  • With other assets flowing into Soneium and linking to ASTR, liquidity depth for ASTR pairs on AMMs and DEXs will improve.
  • This will make it easier to swap ASTR tokens with reduced slippage when trading against ETH, USDC, USDT, or other tokens.

If the campaign only rewards ASTR use cases on Soneium and excludes other tokens, the likely outcome is that only existing ASTR holders will participate. While this would benefit current holders, it wouldn’t attract new investors or buying power from Ethereum users. Without fresh capital entering the ecosystem, there wouldn’t be any meaningful impact on the ASTR price or ecosystem growth.

Having a higher multiplier for ASTR tokens compared to other assets strikes a fair balance. It rewards and incentivizes existing ASTR holders while still making the campaign attractive to Ethereum users, creating the flywheel effect we’re aiming for.

2 Likes
94

I am supportive with the proposal from @SoneFi-Dex. For Astar ecosystem and ASTR to benefit the most from ACS campaign, we need to ensure ASTR is distributed to as many people as possible, and have a lot of trading/commerce/consumption activities using ASTR as a currency.

In this sense, meme culture is one of the most intuitive way to bootstrap the activities and community. However, current challenge that broader Astar ecosystem including Soneium is facing is lack of liquidity and community who actively trade memes. SoneFi has been building up the community organically and they have been developing a good progress, but incentive is going to be helpful to further accelerate the growth.

Once we have one representative meme in broader Astar ecosystem, we will see a lot more organic liquidity and community coming in. We need to bootstrap the first one using some incentives from our side, which is a common practice in any other ecosystem.

That said, 2% of total allocation is higher end of allocation considering current allocation. ACS, which was a campaign hosted by 5 projects despite shorter period, is proposed to have 2.5% of allocation. In this sense, I propose to downsize the allocation for ‘Soneium Meme Spark Contest’, organized and hosted by SoneFi, to 1% of total ACS. Accordingly, I propose change in allocation as per below:

  • 25m ACS (2.5%): Astar Surge participants
  • 10m ACS (1%): Soneium Meme Spark Contest
  • 700m ACS (70%): Based on TVL
  • 265m ACS (26.5%): At discretion

For the fairness, we will have to exclude SoneFi from a dapp to receive eligible allocation, but if SoneFi’s contribution well exceeds 1% of total allocation through the contest, it can be re-evaluated.

Having ASTR as bonding curve currency and main trading pair for major memes in Soneium will have massive impact for Astar. Looking forward to hearing more about community’s thoughts on this meme initiatve.

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95

It’s nice to see the positive sentiment towards memes as we head into Soneium.

Quick plug for HAHA, which was Astar’s first me coin and launched on Astar zkEVM

We are currently in the middle of a move from Astar zkEVM to Soneium. Anticipating illiquidity to be live soon. will have roughly 1.3k wallet holders which puts us somewhere in the upper end of the top 20 tokens by holders on Soneium .

We are continuing with the HAHA/ASTR LP pairing on Soneium as it is important that projects continue to us ASTR on Soneium.

So 100% behind @SoneFi-Dex with their meme contest, and would be a great use of advertising funds to support especially if a requirement is to pair the meme tokens with ASTR.

Let keep supporting these types of initiatives through the proposal to go-live stages and further.

1 Like
96

Thank you, everyone, for your valuable insights and feedback on the proposal.

Here are some adjustments after considering the community’s input:

  • Increase the ASTR multiplier to 2X and the ASTR derivatives multiplier to 1.5X.
  • Raise the AMM DEX multiplier to 1.5X.
  • Allocate 1% to the SoneFi meme contest.
    ** 25m ACS (2.5%): Astar Surge participants
    ** 10m ACS (1%): Soneium Meme Spark Contest
    ** 700m ACS (70%): Based on TVL
    ** 265m ACS (26.5%): At discretion
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97

Hi jay,
You forgot to add :

  • allocat a small % to LFGM particpiant (0.5-1%) who didn’t received any rewards
  • add a vesting or split distribution to ACS rewards
  • split ACS allocation on more categories and reduce TVL based pts like dev activities for instance

Those are also valide and significant community input which aim to improve the proposal and its impact on curent & futur holder community

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98

Hi @Mouthmouth68

We had an internal discussion within Astar Foundation on the adjustment that need to be made and we stand behind the thought process on LFGM and vesting that I posted here:

Related to LFGM: Treasury Proposal for ACS Campaign - #35 by Maarten
Related to Vesting: Treasury Proposal for ACS Campaign - #38 by Maarten

1 Like
99

I support this in its entirety, you definitely couldn’t have said it better.

Creating the need for use of the $ASTR token for profit is a clear attraction for many users in the ecosystem or external ecosystems looking for what tokens to invest in. We must work on making the $ASTR a widely used currency, that is, that holders do not think whether to exchange it for USDC or wait for its price to go up, but rather think about not selling it because they will need it later to participate in x campaign, to play x game, to buy x meme and so on.

So, I highlight my resounding support here.

100

I see your point but, ultimatly, we all need to paie for our rent/loan, put some gas in our car, food on the table or paie for our tools/divertissment/sport activities/travel etc…

Like many, part of my passive income come from farming/staking/lending my crypto including ASTR token. To be able to use them IRL we have no choice but to convert them in BTC or USDC before converting them into fiat. Also, tax system on crypto of many country force farmer to convert them in stable if they do not want to take the risk of paying tax on token worth less at tax date than when they receive them.

If we really want $ASTR to be adopted for what it is, a currency, and not just as a source of speculation, this is the kind of utility we need it to have.
Buying a meme, keeping ASTR for a campaign or play a game is close to useless for over 99% of the potential userpool… We thus should more push on initiative and usecase involving day to day expense of Mrs or Mr Everbody.

Slash Vision and JPYC could be a good first step in this direction but sadly this project never received significative support from community or the team (i wonder why) but this is another subject.

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101

Problem is that in Polkadot governance system anyone with token can vote , even if they sell the next second(to my understanding, I apollogize if this has changed, please correct me).
I belive only staked ASTR should count towards voting. So counting only staked ASTR I belive 25% is acheivable. We just need to engage stakers to start voting. Massively. It could be done by posting every proposal that is live on dApp staking, Discord, X… and call to vote. I belive those that will start to vote will engage more often as with governance participation they learn about projects progress.
And if we do retrroactive airdrop to voters after 10 proposal(random number, up to discussion), voting on each gives certain ammount of ASTR, quorum will always be high;-) I haven’t voted if any was posted already so I have nothing to gain, but best you reward first 10 proposal voters. They really cared about governance. And airdrop will reward active community members not bots and airdrop hunters…