The Cardano Foundation just nuked Catalyst Fund13. Absolutely destroyed it.
Why?
By voting with 180 million ADA on proposal allocating around 100% of the budget for each category they essentially ensured that almost all of the proposals they vote for get through.
I'd argue that especially in the smaller categories with less budget per proposal, where we typically see less voting, there's almost no chance for proposals without CF Votes to get passed.
What's the point of doing this?
I believe it's a show of force by the CF to display that Catalyst has to drastically change.
While I agree with this sentiment (Catalyst shouldn't be optimizing for Decentralization like it currently is because it's impossible but instead for outcome) I think the way they do it is very radical.
I'm really curious to see what happens in Fund14.
My personal opinion is that Catalyst should be scoped down to 10 million ADA a year and really focus only being an innovation fund.
Also the voting should be done in a different way. Catalyst will always be less decentralization than normal on-chain governance via Dreps.
So focus Catalyst on outcomes. Maybe let a committee decide or something like this? This committee could be voted on by Dreps.
What does it mean for NMKR?
For us this means that likely 0 NMKR-only proposals will get through.
There's a lot of proposals where NMKR is being used in the background and obviously this indirectly benefits us but none of the proposals where NMKR would actually get any of the Catalyst money directly get passed.
Unfortunately not only did none of the NMKR-only proposals get selected but now also they have no way of getting voted through organically because of the way the CF decided to handle this fund.
And let me be very clear, this is not a complaint. A lot of NMKR-related proposals have been voted for that will help us indirectly and we're extremely grateful for that.
I just wanted to express a few points in the way I see it.
I hope that this will lead to a radically redesigned Catalyst Fund14 but oh boy many people will be very unhappy with the CF about it.
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