Here’s a look into what’s been happening behind the scenes in October, as well as what’s planned next.
October Review
Rebranding
It’s done! We hope you all enjoy the new assets and our overall branding. We didn’t want to finalise on a design that we weren’t happy with, which was the reason for the minor delay.
Website Revamp
We originally planned to push out the website around now, but we’ve been making some adjustments and don’t feel like it’s launch ready at this moment. We’ll aim to have it live in 2-3 days while we refine the UI and layout.
Keep in mind the current draft site isn’t the finalised version we have in mind. The vision for the website is a dynamic one and we’ll continue to improve and build upon new features. We’ve already planned some fun updates for November.
Application Platform
This will also be coming alongside the website launch.
Staking
We’re excited to announce that the Prelim LIP for staking V1 is out! Check it out here.
Finalised details will be published on our Mirror blog later after the LIP has gone through community discussion and the final voting rounds with community approval.
Ethlizards Contributor Program
This program has been live for a couple of weeks now. We’ve been reviewing applications and talking behind the scenes. The Liaisons and Librarians are making great progress. DAO contributors are also voting on which projects get approved for collaborations and WLs, so these are nice steps towards decentralising some of the DAO works. The new structure has been great and we’ve already become a lot more streamlined with collaborations and things are moving along a lot faster. Excited to continue to expand this and work to provide value to our holders with more collaborations, WLs, access, game tournaments and more.
November Planning
It’s time for building and talking! November’s plan mostly revolves around 3-4 big things. Here’s what they are:
Advisors, Collabs & Partnership Onboarding
Get ready to see a lot more faces than just Kieran within Ethlizards. We’ve started reaching out and forming a list of talent we’d love to see join the Ethlizards community to help us improve on deal flow, governance & new products. Special thanks to Rogier and Florian for feedback on graphics/UI and to Andy for helping to review some important items over this last month.
Additional Website Updates
Fleshing out the website with more information, dashboards for holders will be constantly iterated on for the foreseeable future. We’ll continue to dial in the aesthetic and features on the website.
Staking Development
We’ll be hard at work developing & designing the new mechanisms behind staking. You can be sure that we’ll show our progress updates in future newsletters.
Governance
Building an effective, fair and agile governance system is one of our goals for the future. With this in mind, we are looking to begin researching and ideating a basic governance structure that will allow Ethlizards to last an eternity within the crypto space. As always, this will be informed by best practices and submitted to the community for discussion, approval and voting.
Financials Review
Investments
It’s been a good month, and we’ve been able to close on our pending investments. Here’s an excerpt from Lizident, a member of the Investment Council:
Investment A - Funds Sent.
Investment B - We sent over the email to receive the SAFT and then we can send the funds.
Investment C - Finalizing the Aelin pool setup.
There are also more investment opportunities in the pipeline from advisors and contributors that will be delivered to the Investment Council throughout November.
Investment project info remains unlisted due to NDA. As soon as we’re allowed, the project specifics will be published for each.
Expenses and Spending
The only expenses for this month have been salaries and the investment to project “A”.
Marketing efforts don’t move the needle much in a bear market (poor ROI). Many projects have cut back on marketing spending lately and it is strongly advised to not spend significant funds on marketing during major economic downturns. With this in mind, we have made efforts to reduce marketing expenses and DAO overhead costs at this time. This not only helps to maintain the project runway but also ensures that funds are reserved for investments and other critical developments and works. Related to this, the No Standing partnership agreement has been changed and we have paused some services and discontinued others. No Standing will still deliver services that have already been paid for (see below).
To be clear, marketing efforts have not stopped; The DAO has just reduced marketing spending at this time. Ongoing marketing efforts will continue to bring in new members and attention to what we're doing via Twitter, collabs, partnerships, AMAs, being featured in Web3 games, Lizard presence in major projects and discords, as well as the remaining No Standing deliverables (music video, scavenger hunt, AMAs, honorary lizards collection, merch, etc.).
A message for these times
People are generally more restless and stressed during a bear market. Some people may be overinvested or struggling to deal with being in the red, while others are missing the glory days of NFT summer. You can see the impact of this across crypto Twitter and NFT discords.
When you work in the fast-paced and constantly shifting landscape of Web3, sometimes there is no perfect way to move forward - especially in a DAO like ours that has such an intelligent but diverse community. Regardless of which path arises or a choice that the team makes, there is always going to be discourse and some potential for missed opportunities. Debate is an essential part of business and governance. We love that the lizards are very active in governance and pushing for constant improvements and changes, though this comes with a lot of pressure to be able to quickly deliver effective products. While it’s impossible to accommodate everyone, we’re confident that together we can establish solutions and developments that are beneficial for the DAO.
We’d like to take a moment to reaffirm the Ethlizards vision and how the team plans to deliver on this. Regardless of any debate or discussion, we will always be able to work toward solutions that aim to align the major pillars of the DAO; the team, mods, contributors, advisors, Investment Council, governance, community members and the DAO itself.
Ethlizards is an investment DAO - we do not rely on newcomers joining the protocol as a sole source of income. While royalties help to fund the monthly operational costs, the revenue from investments is the true end game. We're continuing to increase the inflow of investment opportunities and this will always be one of the primary focuses of the DAO.
Selling a simple NFT PFP jpeg is a lot harder than selling a functional NFT with real utility behind it. The team’s focus is to keep improving on that utility and providing real value to holders. After working in crypto for a long time, I've realised one important thing:
Narratives win bull markets; products win bear markets.
We appreciate your patience as we’re working to deliver new and unseen concepts to the DAO.
It doesn't matter if the rest of Web3 falls apart; the Ethlizards vision is clear and our mission remains the same: Become a leading GameFi/Defi Investment DAO, offer top-class NFT utility and continue bringing holder benefits to one of the best communities in Web3.