I support this proposal. Given the increasing scrutiny of crypto by governments, providing additional layer of legal buffer is a smart idea, especially for a privacy-focused project like HOPR.
I trust the members of the HOPR Association, but I would like to see members of the community be among the directors of the HOPR Community Trust as a step towards decentralization and increased transparency.
These are both good questions and I look forward to seeing how the team responds. To make an informed vote, we should realistically consider both the advantages and disadvantages.
I’d like to understand how the other candidates were stacked up and considered if at all.
What I’m asking for are defined risks that expose Hopr Rise to negative influence or exposure through or by BVI. The proposal itself is extremely one sided, giving the inclination of “why bother voting” if its going to be done anyway.
There is no neutral risk or lesser exposure route, only two foggy paths in this proposal with what appear to be hazards known but not seen.
I do support this proposal. For the interim having the HOPR association as members of the trust make sense, as the HOPR protocol is not yet generating significant revenue to pay for external qualified individuals/organizations to be trustees. As soon as the HOPR protocol generates continuous significant revenue in the future, HOPR association should cease acting as trustees/other roles and employ qualified external individuals/organization.
Interesting proposal and discussion. It would be nice to have a visual representation of all entities and their relationships/dependencies and so on.
sorry, but what is BVI?
Edit: should have read the other proposals > Community Trust FAQs
I am no tax expert. When the foundation was advised to to it, then I vote with yes.
British Virgin Islands
A lot of (complicated leagel) questions been asked by the community. Reading the answers from the team I realize, they’ve put a lot of work, effort and thoughts into this proposal, presenting us with the best option currently available.
Therefore, I will support this proposal.
I have to admit that we’re in somewhat uncharted territory here. A lot of lawyers we’ve talked to are positive about this setup (but they were also positive about Swiss Foundations, and that didn’t work out well. These things can be faddy. However, I would say that the legal reasoning seems to be a lot deeper this time.)
Still, I appreciate that more positive confirmation would be useful here. When I next talk with our BVI lawyers I’ll see if I can get a list of projects which have successfully leveraged this BVI setup.
From HOPR’s perspective, we’ve arrived at this decision through something of a process of elimination: it’s clear to us from the current regulatory landscape that the community would benefit from a legal wrapper (which wasn’t our initial intent). We originally thought of using Switzerland, but our own Swiss lawyers advised against it and instead suggested Cayman Islands or BVI. Cayman Islands vs BVI is interesting. Cayman Island allows some very unusual ownerless structures, but ultimately didn’t seem to have the checks and balances which BVI provides.
Simultaneously, a lot of our friends at other projects (Gnosis, Aragon, DXDAO, SushiDAO, SafeDAO, Arbitrum, etc.) have been running into various governance issues. Many of them are looking to transition out of their restrictive setups but are stuck.
Common jurisdictions which they’ve tried and we’ve discarded include Switzerland and Guernsey (another UK overseas jurisdiction). Standard reasons for discarding were:
One obvious question is “Well won’t we just get stuck in an unsuitable legal wrapper, just like those other guys?” Perhaps, but I (and many excited lawyers) think that a key difference is how narrow this setup is. Many of those projects I mentioned set up monolithic DAO structures to try and cover ALL of their governance. A key difference with our proposed set up is that each part of HOPR that needs governance (the Association, the community, the protocol itself) will have a different legal entity in what we feel is the most suitable jurisdiction.
Still, on its own I appreciate that’s not a very satisfactory answer.
I’m hoping that one of our legal advisors will be able to join us for Monday’s Twitter Space so he can provide more context here. Otherwise I’ll try to get it in writing. He’ll be more concise than me!
Sure. I have that as part of our ongoing legal discussions. I’ll try to get the latest and clearest version on Monday.
very interesting
bvi？What does this mean for HOPR
it is necessary to vote YES for this proposal. otherwise, legal uncertainty may harm the community in the event of disputes with regulatory authorities.
I trust hopr team
We are waiting for more information about the platform. And infographics of the structure of hopr.
I also trust the team
If it legal and allows save money\resources\time then I support this proposal.
that’s right, electronic assets have not been recognized by regulatory authorities
we must plan further until electronic assets are recognized by regulators
what is BVI