Threshold
LOL. Snowbridge. The famous bridge to nowhere, which was meant to bring USDT / USDC to the ecosystem. I suggest you fix your product first before asking for more money. Actually you shouldn't ask for money at all, but be financed by your users (If you had any, that is).
PolkaWorld voted NAY
The main reason is the lack of clarity in budget allocation.
Part of the requested funding is for development work, but the details are vague—we only see the monthly cost, not what specific work will be delivered each month or how many developers are involved. Another part is allocated for growth incentives, yet there are no clear targets or metrics tied to that spending.
Overall, the proposal needs to provide much greater transparency on how the $5M will be used.
View all our feedback here.
Dear Proposer,
Thank you for your proposal. Our first vote on this proposal is NAY.
The Big Spender track requires 60% quorum (6 aye votes out of 10 members) according to our voting policy v0.2. This proposal has received two aye and two nay votes from ten available members, with three members abstaining. Below is a summary of our members' comments:
In the referendum, opinions varied significantly among voters regarding the funding request. Some expressed concerns about the amount being excessively high and suggested exploring alternative funding sources, while others acknowledged the importance of Snowbridge in enhancing the Polkadot-Ethereum connection. A few voters recognized the team's efforts and the need for improvements, particularly in liquidity, to ensure the bridge's usability. Ultimately, the divided sentiments led to a mix of votes, with some choosing to abstain due to their ambivalence about the proposal.
The full discussion can be found in our internal voting.
Please feel free to contact us through the links below for further discussion.
Kind regards,
Permanence DAO
Decentralized Voices Cohort IV Delegate
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Edited
Truth DAO voted NAY.
While we recognize the importance of Snowbridge, the proposed costs appear to be quite high, especially considering the current TVL does not seem to justify the expenditure. We believe the proposal should be reevaluated and include a more detailed financial breakdown.
So our main concerns lie in the lack of funding transparency and what appears to be excessive operational costs. We hope to see more clarity on how the funds will be used and a reassessment of the overall proposal.
You can read our full feedback here.
📖Truth DAO Governance Statement
🗳️ Delegate
Thank you to the Snowbridge team for addressing community concerns and for highlighting that this funding request corresponds to a previously approved proposal — which, in principle, should be honored. However, we believe the team has yet to directly address the most critical question raised in the ongoing discussion:
As a piece of public infrastructure, Snowbridge has not issued a token — yet the team is requesting a total of $10 million in incentives. Given that the bridge is meant to serve the public good, how should the value it generates be attributed? We respectfully ask the team to clarify how potential revenues will be handled.
More broadly, this raises important questions for the Polkadot ecosystem: How should public goods be valued? And how should future revenue streams be distributed? We call on the team to provide a clear position and encourage more community members to join this discussion — so we can collectively establish clearer norms and reference models for similar public infrastructure projects.
Additionally, we remain unconvinced about the “reward” component of this proposal. If the work has already been delivered and salaries have already been paid, what justifies a further incentive payment?
Overall, the budget breakdown remains difficult to parse. For a project serving a broader community, cost structures and allocations should be clearly communicated and easy to understand.
As a Decentralized Voice (DV), we also believe the Treasury should avoid making forward-looking financial commitments too early — especially in cases where significant uncertainties remain.
Snowbridge gives us access to only one ecosystem but is costing us more than $5M in a single year. what is the rationale here?
i don't know what it takes to build a trustless bridge, but this cost is pretty fucking wild to my senses.
over 150k per month on what exactly?
how many people are in the team to justify such high monthly payouts?
what exactly does the money cover?
furthermore, are we to expect that this will be the yearly budget for maintaining Snowbridge? or will it go down overtime?
on the whole, this seems like pretty expensive infrastructure.
Snowbridge does little to no marketing that i see. so it is hypothesized that all of this is development and maintenance costs. is this so? perhaps i am missing/misunderstanding some important factors.