Company attributes
Cryptocurrency attributes
Other attributes
Congruent is a DAO operating on the Ethereum Network and is focused on governance solutions, or GovFi, which could include more effectively capturing governance value, increasing governance participation, improving governance efficiency, etc. By leveraging the collective power of the DAO to research across the governance space, valuable governance solutions and products can be designed to enhance governance efficiency and unlock value and income that may have been buried under mismatched resources or inefficiencies. This could mean allowing revenues on the platform to rise, which are then distributed to all governance tokens. Or, it could mean the scale of the platform grows, which means a rise in the value of its governance assets.
Why is Congruent not an OHM Fork?
Certainly, OlympusDAO has been a pioneer in the concept of using staking to generate income for users. While this can be a very effective model for the initial stages of a project, we do not view this as our long-term strategy. We believe that there is much more value to be created by Congruent in the governance space, or GovFi, beyond simply a rebase model. We are focused long-term on bringing enhanced efficiency and profits to the DeFi space with our own products and services. To be sure, during our initial phase, and while we are still in the process of ramping up our revenues, the rebase model makes sense as an effective bootstrap method, and is a good way to reward early investors for coming onboard early before our governance solutions have taken hold throughout the industry. The rebase model will allow stakers to earn stable income during this initial phase, and once the platform reaches a certain point, in terms of scale and income, we can transition away from the rebase model and towards a more stable token distribution model that is based on valuable GovFi strategies and solutions.
What is Gaas?
Congruent is essentially a Governance-as-a-service platform and Gaas is the platform’s own governance and value token. Users hold Gaas tokens in order to participate in Congruent's governance and to receive income from Congruent.
Who Created Congruent?
Congruent was created by people from various DAO communities, including Ohmies, Curve OGs, and a team of idealists and builders.
Who Operates Congruent?
Everyone. Congruent is run by a DAO, a true DAO, with no central spokesperson, and no despotic leader–just a band of brothers. While there is a sort of core at the center of the vortex of activity, it is constantly pulling in ideas and resources from those on the outer edges into the center. Congruent gives everyone an opportunity to participate in governance. But, we do not believe in always tying one person to one vote. If someone has contributed in a meaningful way in the DAO, then their voting power should reflect that. But, more on the structure of this voting mechanism will be released in Q1.
How are Assets Secured?
The concept of Protocol-Owned-Liquidity (POL) has become a powerful one precisely because it allows a protocol to not only control its own destiny in terms of liquidity, but it means that these assets are secured in place via a multisig wallet. Currently, the Congruent multisig wallet has 7 members, with 4 signatures required for a transaction.
What if CRV/CVX were to Fail?
Of course, there is the risk that Curve or Convex could fail, but Curve is such an integral part of the DeFi space that such an event would mean the entire DeFi space has failed, which seems unlikely. So, in fact, betting on Curve is actually a diversified bet on the DeFi space as a whole. As for Convex, if Convex were to suddenly fail, we have little doubt that another savvy player would quickly rise up to take its place. And Congruent fully intends to expand its roster of governance tokens beyond these two, so such risk should be adequately spread out across many platforms and therefore prudently mitigated.
How do I Benefit from the Congruent Governance Model?
- Holders of the Congruent token, Gaas (most likely wsGaas, initially) receive earnings from the governance tokens held in the Treasury. For example, if Congruent holds Convex voting tokens, vlCVX, and delegates them on Votium, then the Congruent Treasury stands to receive various bribes, and 50% of those bribes received will be converted to USDC and paid out to users who have staked their wsGaas .
- People can earn Gaas by participating in the DAO. As more protocol governance tokens are covered by Congruent, more rewards are generated overall, which all goes back to Congruent token holders.
Staking is the primary value accrual strategy of Congruent. Stakers stake their Gaas on the Congruent website to earn rebase rewards. The rebase rewards come from the proceeds from bond sales and on revenues generated by the Treasury.
Staking is a passive, long-term strategy. The increase in your stake of Gaas translates into a constantly falling cost basis converging on zero. This means even that, if the market price of Gaas were to drop below your initial purchase price, over a long enough staking timeframe, the increase in your staked Gaas balance should eventually outpace the fall in price.
When you stake, you lock Gaas and receive an equal amount of sGaas. Your sGaas balance rebases up automatically at the end of every epoch.
When you unstake, you burn sGaas and receive an equal amount of Gaas.
Binding is a secondary strategy for accumulating the value of Congruent. This allows Congruent to acquire its own liquidity and other reserve assets by selling Gaas at a discount in exchange for those assets.
Bonding is an active short-term strategy. The pricing mechanism in the secondary bond market makes bond discounts more or less unpredictable. Thus, a bond is considered a more active investment strategy that needs to be controlled to be more profitable compared to staking.
Linking allows us to control our own liquidity (POL), and more POL ensures that our trading pools always have locked liquidity to facilitate market transactions and protect token holders. Also, as Congruent creates its own marketplace, this means that, in addition to providing additional reassurance to Gaas investors, the protocol can generate more and more revenue from LP rewards, thereby strengthening our treasury.
Governance for the Current Stage
During the initial phase, Congruent DAO governance will follow the Congruent Constitution, whether it be in regards to product development, DAO assignments, budgets, or anything else.
Any proposal that requires approval by the Congruent DAO will need to follow the designed governance structure.
Total voting weight of each snapshot = 100% ; wsGaas = 66.6% vote weight ; NFTs = 33.3% vote weight
For example, if there are 100 wsGaas tokens when the snapshot occurs, the voting power of the NFTs would be the equivalent of 50 wsGaas voting power out of a total of 150 wsGaas (100%). Since each NFT is entitled to 75 Gaas, NFT buyers would roughly hold ⅔ of total voting power and ½ of total token initial supply, initially. However, as the total number of Gaas tokens will continue to rise as new tokens are minted by the platform via the Treasury, it is possible that the voting power of the NFTs will become slightly diluted over time.
The Congruent DAO Core Team will not exercise the voting rights attached to the NFTs.
The Next Stage of Governance
Once the Congruent has accumulated enough governance assets, voting will be opened up so that individuals can be selected to decide on the voting rights from the NFTs. Indeed, as Congruent has control over more and more external governance assets, and income from those assets increases, control over the governance of Congruent will also become very much in-demand.
Going forward - A Fairer and more Efficient Governance System
The phrase, “one person, one vote”, is one that we often hear. But, such a mechanism does not prevent whales from exerting disproportionate control (by using multiple wallets). Of course, it makes intuitive sense that someone who spends more to hold a larger position should be entitled to a larger say over the operation of the DAO than someone with a smaller position. But, what if someone is able to meaningfully contribute to the DAO in other ways, but simply doesn’t have the financial ability to hold a token position that matches his/her ability to contribute. It is important to ensure that the DAO is properly utilizing all available resources to their fullest for the benefit of the DAO, which, in turn, is to the benefit of all of its stakeholders. Indeed, someone with meagre token holdings may actually be more familiar with the platform or have better ideas than someone with larger holdings, which means that allocating votes purely on the basis of finances may not bring the greatest benefit to the platform. It is precisely because of this that we intend to leverage the DAO structure and workflow so as to better reward those who contribute and therefore better correct this imbalance. Again, this is one of the central aims of Congruent–-to optimize governance so bring out greater efficiency, and this includes better utilization of people!
The way that we intend to correct certain imbalances is by introducing the concept of a vote-multiplier that is based on one’s level of commitment and contribution:
- Someone who is knowledgeable and contributes meaningfully to the DAO should have no less standing than someone with large token holdings who provides neither of those elements.
- Someone with large token holdings who holds it for an extended period of time would also be considered to be making a valuable contribution and deserving of a multiplier.
- Someone with large token holdings who is also knowledgeable of the platform and contributes to the DAO would be deserving of an exceptional multiplier.
And so this is our core objective: to design a DAO workflow that incorporates these key elements so that the concept of “Congruent: governance for all people” is not simply an empty slogan.
Congruent generates income from the assets held in its Treasury, which means income received from rewards from the tokens themselves, as well as bribes associated with those assets.
Bribe Income
A perfect example of how to benefit from bribe income is Convex. If the Congruent Treasury holds Convex voting tokens, vlCVX, and delegates them on Votium, then the Congruent Treasury stands to receive various bribes. From there, 50% of all bribe income received is swapped into USDC (or other stable coin, such as DAI, FRAX, et.c, as may be decided by the DAO) and distributed to wsGaas holders every 2 weeks. As new governance assets are introduced and accumulated in the Treasury, total bribe income continues to swell. Indeed, looking at the year ahead, we see a number of protocols adopting more open governance token models and issuing governance tokens that could fit very well with Congruent’s overall strategy and be a positive addition to our Treasury. One prime example of this is Tokemak. So, overall, we see enormous growth and potential in the GovFi space over the coming months and year and Congruent will be there from the onset to capture that growth.
Token Rewards
An example of excellent token rewards that can be earned is veCRV, whereby holders of veCRV enjoy income from the platform. But, if Congruent is able to use its resources and know-how to enhance the governance efficiency of a platform such as Curve, then all token holders can benefit (either through freeing up more rewards to be shared, or through an overall increase in value from the resulting growth of the platform). Plus, as various other governance tokens are added, and similar governance efficiencies are achieved in their respective governance models, the rewards and value generated from those tokens combined with the synergies developed across all such tokens and platforms will begin to multiply, and can then be poured back into the same and other governance strategies.
There is no cap on the Gaas supply. The DAO retains the right to set caps down the road so as to allow for maximum flexibility for our tokennomics.
Token Name: $gaas
Decimal Places: 9
Initial Supply: 6,500
46.15% [3,000] - Early investors that participated in the NFT auction. Each NFT (total 40) is entitled to 75 Gaas via airdrop on Feb 10 before liquidity for Gaas has been created, plus voting power allocation in the Congruent DAO. The allocation from the NFT auction has no vesting period.
46.15% [3,000] - LBP Sale. The LBP will use the aGaas token, and aGaas purchased in the LBP can be converted to Gaas at a ratio of 1:1 after the end of the LBP, without vesting period
3.07% [200] - Market development, including proposal submissions
1.53% [100] - Team
3.07% [200] - Airdrop; Rewards for those who support Congruent's cooperation proposals on other DAOs.
