Proposed steps for Forth DAO sunset

[Brandon]

Last month, FORTH holders passed the proposal on Cactus to wind down the Forth DAO. Upon execution, timelock ownership was transferred from GovernorBravo to the Kennel Club multisig. Administration of the ampleforth protocol is now back to the state it was in before token governance, with the addition of a Timelock in between the multisig and the protocol. There is a liquid treasury with assets that can be returned to DAO stakeholders and used to support the AMPL ecosystem.

The following is a proposed process for winding down the Forth DAO, including the treasury assets and how to handle the systems under management.

Treasury

The high level approach to handling the treasury is to 1) keep AMPL liquidity in the market, 2) direct any assets from FORTH liquidity back to AMPL liquidity, 3) distribute non-AMPL liquid assets to FORTH holders, and 4) direct any unclaimed assets back to AMPL liquidity at the end of the claim period.

As of 10/14/2026, the DAO treasury holds:

DAO Assets	Balance	Value
AMPL	160,507.62	$197,424.38
WAMPL	13,971.91	$4,405.90
FORTH	2,651,583.70	$634,675.12
SPOT	4,905.01	$854.08
USDC	2,538,734.86	$2,538,734.86
ETH	4.20	$10,139.29
WETH	4.75	$11,448.02
GRT	47,500.10	$1,194.03

Liquidity Positions	Balance	Value
ETH/AMPL UniV2	0.07746149151	$99,350.07
WETH/WAMPL UniV3 (Charm)	45,336.51	$80,317
FORTH/WETH UniV3 (Charm)	100,000.00	$133,286
stAMPL	1,797.38	$59,560.07929

The GRT will be sold into USDC and that total USDC balance will be distributed according to the process described below. Unclaimed USDC will be directed to AMPL liquidity.

The WETH/WAMPL position on Charm will be consolidated into the AMPL/ETH Uniswap V2 position. This puts liquidity into one place and reduces any future platform risk from Charm.

The FORTH liquidity will be removed and the WETH pair token will be put towards AMPL liquidity.

The FORTH tokens held by the DAO will be burned.

stAMPL will be withdrawn to AMPL and added to AMPL liquidity.

Governed Systems

AMPL

AMPL keeps trucking, as it always has and as it is meant to. The AMPL contract is immutable and continues to guarantees non-dillutive and proportional rebases. The monetary policy, market oracle, CPI oracle, and orchestrator will be owned once again by the Kennel Club multisig+Timelock. There is a purely-onchain market oracle in development, which could remove any oversight requirements of that oracle piece if that is deployed.

While it’s possible to move AMPL to a completely immutable state, this would require removing the CPI oracle and freezing the associated price target, as there is no trustless onchain PCE or inflation data. While there are positive qualities to such a pure system, we believe that removing the dynamic price target would be controversial among the AMPL community. However, if anyone disagrees and wants to advocate for that position, please reply below.

Spot

It is proposed to sunset Spot. It operated according to design, but was never able to find product/market fit and it’s difficult to see a path where that changes. This includes SPOT, stAMPL, and Bill Broker. It is recommended that anyone holding assets in these systems remove them before the end of the claim period described below. Deposit functions will be disabled on the app, but we’ll continue to support the app to allow redemptions until further notice.

Distribution Process

A snapshot of FORTH balances will be taken on December 1, 2026 at 00:00 UTC. The USDC will be distributed equally on a per token basis, but FORTH controlled by the treasury will not be given any allocation. Ahead of this time, in order to be counted, any FORTH tokens held offchain should be brought onchain. Distribution will be executed on the Merkl platform.

There will be a 3 month claim period starting on the day of the snapshot. As described above, any unclaimed assets remaining will be directed toward AMPL liquidity on Uniswap V2. If AMPL needs to be bought or sold to achieve the correct LP token ratio, this will happen at that time. Note that the FORTH token is not being burned and may continue to be traded as any other ERC-20.

[Fuark]

So basically, FORTH holders who received the governance token through an airdrop or bought it on Binance without knowing what it was for are being reimbursed, while people who invested in the ecosystem that was supposed to be built get nothing.

FORTH, SPOT, and stAMPL are being sunsetted, but only FORTH holders are being reimbursed with treasury funds. Those funds were intended to support the entire SPOT/stAMPL/FORTH ecosystem. In other words, people who believed in SPOT are being completely ignored.

After the sunset, there will be no hope of future development because SPOT and stAMPL are being discontinued, while the treasury funds will either be distributed to FORTH holders or used to provide additional liquidity for AMPL. The treasury funds were supposed to be used to develop the SPOT and stAMPL ecosystem.

FORTH holders get reimbursed with DAO funds, while SPOT supporters who held their tokens in the vault are completely ignored, despite the DAO funds being intended to support the SPOT ecosystem. The team is washing its hands of SPOT and acting as though it never existed.

FORTH was supposed to govern SPOT and stAMPL, yet only FORTH holders are being reimbursed?

I have two proposals.

Proposal 1: Reimburse stAMPL holders as well

During the sunset, stAMPL holders who believed that SPOT and stAMPL would continue to be developed should also be reimbursed. Half of the funds should go to stAMPL holders, and the other half should go to FORTH holders.

The purpose of the DAO funds was to develop the SPOT ecosystem, as well as to add value to FORTH. Both groups should be reimbursed. The governance token holders as well as the people invested in the vault. The Dao funds purpose was to benefit both parties. The governance token holders and the people invested in the governed system. Creating a second stampl snapshot and distributing with a 50/50 split between forth and stampl holders would be a more fair way of distrobution.

Proposal 2: Leave the funds in the hands of the community

The funds should remain under community control so that the community can attempt to find or build a product-market fit for SPOT, stAMPL, and the Bill Broker.

The purpose of the treasury funds was always to develop the SPOT and stAMPL ecosystem. People invested their money and time in SPOT and stAMPL under the assumption that, regardless of market conditions or SPOT’s struggles, the funds would eventually be used for that purpose.

Sunsetting SPOT while distributing the treasury funds exclusively to FORTH holders is, in my opinion, wrong.

The development team cuts off communication and then suddenly decides to sunset SPOT and the vault. Many people believed that the treasury funds would eventually be used to develop the SPOT ecosystem.

Instead, FORTH holders receive a distribution from the treasury, while AMPL holders benefit from additional liquidity. Meanwhile, the people who believed in SPOT and remained in the vault during the period of silence—thinking the lack of communication was temporary, continuing to believe in the project, and expecting the DAO funds to be used for its future development—get nothing.

How is that fair to the people who supported the very ecosystem those funds were supposed to help build?

[Fuark]

Regarding when the snapshots should be taken for my first proposal, I think they should be taken as soon as possible, ideally at the time this post was published.

If the team insists on sunsetting both SPOT and FORTH, I think the snapshots should be taken at the time this proposal was posted, using my proposed 50/50 split between FORTH and STAMPL holders.

Until this proposal was posted, people assumed there would be some form of continuation using the treasury funds. I think both snapshots should be taken as soon as possible or at the time of this proposal to avoid further speculation and game theory surrounding the FORTH market until December 1. An issue like this doesn’t exist for stampl because depositing into stampl vault has been closed anyway.

[Antonio]

The presented by @Brandon sunset plan is fundamentally unfair to stAMPL holders and completely ignores the role they have played in keeping SPOT alive over the years.

stAMPL holders were one of the main reasons SPOT survived as long as it did. Without their continued commitment and willingness to endure an endless cycle of negative rebases, SPOT would likely have faded into obscurity much earlier. For years, these holders absorbed the downside and continued to support the system, giving SPOT a chance to survive and potentially succeed. They did so because they believed in the project and its long-term vision.

And what about FORTH holders? Apart from perhaps ten wallets, how many others have actually participated in governance, voted on proposals, contributed to the community, or actively helped the ecosystem develop? Why should simply holding a governance token entitle someone to treasury compensation, while the people who directly supported the very ecosystem that treasury was supposed to help build receive nothing?

Governance rights should not automatically translate into an exclusive claim on the treasury, especially when the people who sustained the governed ecosystem are being left with nothing.

The DAO treasury was supposed to serve the ecosystem, not merely provide an exit payment to FORTH holders. If the decision is to sunset SPOT and stAMPL, then the interests of stAMPL holders must be taken into account as well. A 50/50 split, as proposed by @Fuark , is a far more reasonable and fair approach than distributing everything exclusively to FORTH holders.

In my opinion, the current proposal disregards years of commitment from stAMPL holders and rewards one group while abandoning another that was equally, if not more directly, invested in the ecosystem’s success. This is not what fair governance should look like. I sincerely hope the community will reject the current plan unless it is revised to account for stAMPL holders.

[itsbeenfun]

I agree with strengthening AMPL’s liquidity and position, and sunsetting the experimental SPOT system (SPOT v2 on 2factor maybe someday? ;)).

However, as was noted on Discord, moving most of the funds to a few FORTH addresses that would also control any vote on this plan seems wrong to me. Some of the large holders are CEX addresses, so it would be good to see a breakdown of who would actually receive the funds. In addition, FORTH will have no real purpose afterwards, so why should it be the main basis for distribution?

Could the funds be distributed through geysers instead, so the community decides where liquidity is needed?

[Togenkyo]

As someone who has been part of this community for 6 years, disappointed doesn’t even come close to describing how I feel about the way the team has handled the last 8 months. Extremely unprofessional, and honestly, it feels like a betrayal of the community that has supported this project for years.

The last thing we were told was that communication was only temporarily paused and that the team was working on something that would benefit the AMPL ecosystem. Many of us, myself included, continued defending the team because we believed what we were told.

Instead, we were left completely in the dark, only to find out through third parties about Fragments/2factor and the plans for a new token on a new chain. And now, after 8 months of silence, we’re suddenly winding down the DAO.

AMPL has lost over 80% of its value since the team went dark, which raises serious questions about who knew what and when. What happened to Ampli and their $100k grant? Why have they also disappeared? Did they know something the rest of the community didn’t? You were advisors to them.

Even now, with a decision this important, the team hasn’t bothered to give the community an update in Discord. Not even a link to this proposal.

I think after 6 years of supporting this ecosystem, we deserve better than this.

---

Regarding the proposal

Overall, I think the proposed structure makes sense, but there’s one thing that absolutely needs to be changed. I also think that it is worth discussing refinement of how the USDC should be distributed.

1. The snapshot date HAS to be changed.

Setting the snapshot to December 1 is a terrible idea. You’re essentially inviting another 1.5 months of speculation around FORTH.

• People who had nothing to do with the AMPL ecosystem are going to buy FORTH just to get a share of the treasury.
• This creates incentives for pump-and-dumps and all sorts of game-theoretical PvP around the distribution.
• Existing holders will have to deal with even more speculation and uncertainty after everything that has already happened.

The snapshot should be retroactive, either to when this thread was published or when the original DAO wind-down proposal passed.

Here are the exact dates:

• September 18, 2026, at 05:44 UTC — The original FORTH DAO wind-down proposal passed (voting ended).
• October 14, 2026, at 23:10 UTC — Publish of the forum thread “Proposed steps for Forth DAO sunset.”

Anything else will just turn the remaining treasury into a speculative game. I really don’t see why we would want that. It will only cause more pain.

2. I think we should also discuss compensation for stAMPL holders.

I also sympathize with the points raised by @Fuark and @Antonio above.

I understand that FORTH is the governance token and that it was always meant to control the DAO and its treasury. stAMPL holders, on the other hand, willingly took on a different kind of risk in exchange for the potential of higher returns. So I can understand the argument that the treasury should be distributed exclusively to FORTH holders.

Still, stAMPL holders have also been supporting the ecosystem for years, enduring negative rebases and believing that development would eventually continue. Now that the DAO is being wound down, they’re left with nothing from the treasury.

I do think it would be nice if we could at least have a discussion about whether some portion of the treasury could be allocated to stAMPL holders as well.

After all, the treasury was supposed to support the broader AMPL ecosystem, not just FORTH. And while FORTH holders have a legitimate claim to these funds, I think there’s also an argument to be made for recognizing those who continued supporting the ecosystem through stAMPL.

I’m not saying this has to happen, but I think it’s worth considering rather than dismissing the idea entirely.

---

Ultimately, my main concern is the snapshot date. That absolutely needs to be changed in my opinion. And if we can also find a way to make the wind-down a little fairer to the broader AMPL community, that would be nice as well.

After everything that has happened, I think the community deserves at least that much.

[Togenkyo]

A few more thoughts on how we could potentially handle the distribution in a fairer way.

Looking more closely into the top 100 FORTH holders, including exchanges and smart contracts, I think there are some pretty significant issues with the current proposal that deserve more attention.

We’re talking about distributing roughly $2.54 million in USDC, and looking at the numbers, I think there are several ways this could potentially be handled better.

Here are some suggestions / options:

1. Retroactive snapshot

As mentioned before, I strongly believe the snapshot has to be retroactive, either to September 18 (when the wind-down proposal passed) or October 14 (when this thread was published).

Anything in the future just invites another round of speculation, with people buying FORTH specifically to get a share of the treasury.

Especially considering the governance attack in September, where someone attempted to drain $2.5m from the treasury.

Why would we now create another 1.5 months of speculation, potentially allowing the same attacker or other opportunistic traders to accumulate FORTH and benefit from the distribution?

Any stAMPL distribution should also use a retroactive snapshot.

2. FORTH ownership is extremely concentrated

Looking at the October 15 holder distribution:

• Total FORTH supply: ~15.3 million
• DAO treasury: ~2.65 million FORTH
• Eight identified exchange wallets: ~4.05 million FORTH
• Just SIX other large, currently unclassified addresses hold ~4.42 million FORTH.

Those six addresses alone hold approximately 35% of the supply outside the DAO treasury, corresponding to around $887k in potential USDC allocations.

If we exclude the identified exchanges, those six addresses represent over 51% of the remaining supply.

We’re potentially distributing almost $900k to just six addresses, while people who supported stAMPL for years receive nothing as the proposal currently stands.

I think the team should at least publish a proper breakdown of the distribution, identifying exchanges, contracts, DAO-controlled funds, and the largest remaining holders.

3. (Option) Excluding exchange wallets and allocating their share to stAMPL instead

There are eight exchange wallets belonging to Coinbase, Revolut, Bitvavo, Kraken, KuCoin and GateIO.

Together, these hold approximately 4.05 million FORTH, representing around $814k USDC under the proposed distribution.

As far as I understand, these exchanges could technically claim their USDC allocation, but what guarantees that they actually distribute it to their customers? They also have abandonded the FORTH markets in the past.

One possibility would be to exclude known exchange wallets from the distribution and allocate their share directly to stAMPL holders instead.

Excluding exchanges should NOT increase the allocation of the remaining FORTH holders, but instead the USDC could simply go into a separate pool for stAMPL holders.

I think this is an alternative worth discussing.

4. Liquidity Smart contracts also need to be considered

Besides the DAO treasury, there is the Charm liquidity vault holding approximately 174k FORTH, and two Uniswap V3 pools.

That’s around 195k FORTH in these three contracts.

How will these allocations be handled?

Any funds that cannot reach their rightful beneficiaries could potentially be considered for example for stAMPL compensation rather than simply ending up in AMPL liquidity.

Of course, this raises the question of what about regular AMPL holders who didn’t stake, or people holding SPOT directly.

Still, I think there’s a reasonable distinction between AMPL, which will continue operating, and SPOT/stAMPL, which are actually being discontinued.

[Pascal]

I think that stAmpl holders should be a part of this DAO unwinding.

The Spot site has been unable to find old tranches for redeemed stAmpl for quite some time.

The workaround is to redeem from etherscan, but how many people are technical enough to do that?

There will be a lot of folks stuck with tranches, that they can’t even find in the UI.

I can’t imagine that this would even take long to fix with AI. It worked before at some point. A lot of AMPL supporters lost a lot of Ampl due to this negligence.

Aside from that issue, for qutie some time stAmpl holders participate in the geyser and mined Forth.

If there is a retroactive Forth claim for the DAO, I think the stampl holders who at least mined Forth should be part of the calculation

Furthermore, stAmpl paved the way for the teams next project - Bitcoin Jr and low leverage tokenized stocks.

If not for stAmpl there would be no Bitcoin Jr.

As part of the Froth DAO leagacy, it should at least acknowledge stAmpl as the team transitions to 2Factor on the backs of stAmpl holders essentially being testers for the product.

[itsbeenfun]

Another idea: why not skip distributing the treasury to holders of any token and redirect it towards what is left of the ecosystem instead?

Whoever held what, those holdings have already been decimated (I see that firsthand), so splitting the remains pro rata will change little for them, while funding and developing something new could change a lot.

[Gapseal]

The funds placed in the DAO were not appropriated for payouts. The DAO has a fiduciary duty to AMPL which is where all the funds originated and were earmarked for. SPOT was based off AMPL as was the vault, stAMPL, etc. that being said, any wind down should redirect funds to AMPL (not holders) but purchase or fund to back AMPL ecosystem. AMPL is NOT going away thus in my opinion to take and distribute the DAO funds away from it is nothing more than theft.

[Gapseal]

Another option is, I would NOT be opposed to moving the USDC into a fund that holds BTCjr. The caveat is that this will be held by the AMPL ecosystem. These funds should NOT be distributed out

[Fuark]

About redeeming stampl. Due to the site not loading old tranches its not possible to redeem. Its been like this since late 2025. A number of people when trying to redeem stampl will fail or give up on trying to redeem their stampl due to this bug and just sit on tranches that dont load. I saw some people on discord giving up on trying to redeem their stampl during the last few months. Their money will be locked in a dead vault with no way to get it out unless you are very blockchain savvy. Now stampl and spot get sunset and users are told to withdraw their stampl before the vault is sunset. But some users are unable to do so. This is another argument for stampl holders also getting an allocation from the treasury. Especially since most users wont be able to redeem their tranches. Its been like this since late 2025 due to old tranches not loading.

[mihai130686]

The stampl situation also needs to be addressed
What have Forth holders over Stampl ones that require compensation?
This proposal feels like a burn to stampl holders and the whole Ampl ecosystem. I believe that the majority of Ampl, Spot, Stampl and Forth holders would rather see those funds used for uplifting the ecosystem not burrying it.

[Fuark]

The team presented two possible paths forward during the governance attack and the subsequent treasury vote, outlining how the DAO and its treasury could proceed. The DAO could either continue operating with security guarantees or wind down, with the details of the wind-down determined through community involvement.

Regarding the continuation of the DAO, suggestions for providing security guarantees could offer a potential path forward. As for the wind-down, it was stated that the community would be involved in determining how the process would unfold.

The community seems to be largely in agreement that stampl Vault stakers should not be overlooked during the wind-down process.

[FiveStacks]

Agree with this. Many of us supported the stAMPL vault in order to get SPOT launched…to have this zero out while FORTH holders take the remaining cash does not feel right

This language from the site needs to be clarified first. “The Forth DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization dedicated solely to the growth and adoption of AMPL.” Not “dedicated to FORTH holders.”

[ElasticMind]

To those opposing the wind-down: how would you use the funds to actually grow AMPL and the ecosystem? Is the problem product-market fit, or have the products simply not reached the right people? Neither is easy to solve by spending money. Who would you target, how would you reach them, and who would do the work? “Support the ecosystem” is not a plan, and expecting the team to come up with one just so everyone can shoot it down again doesn’t get us anywhere.

To the team: this apparent change in direction is hugely disappointing. In the office-hours discussion on June 11, 2025, the message I took away was that the low-volatility protocols/product line (now 2factor) were part of the plan for bringing users into AMPL and SPOT. FORTH fee-sharing was discussed too. People didn’t invent these expectations. You communicated a direction, and now we’re discussing sunsetting SPOT.

What changed between presenting these products as a way to grow AMPL/SPOT and proposing to sunset SPOT?

I don’t think the criticism here gives enough credit to the years of work you’ve put into these projects. You’ve built genuinely interesting products and followed through on ideas most teams wouldn’t attempt. But I think appreciating that work and questioning this decision aren’t mutually exclusive.

I’d also like answers to these two questions:

• Could you also make the SPOT web app, documentation source and anything else needed to run the product available as open source, if they aren’t already, so community members could host it, fix issues and provide support?
• What safeguards would make returning governance to FORTH holders possible, and why isn’t that the preferred option?

On the distribution: I disagree with the idea that simply holding stAMPL means you’re owed a share of the FORTH treasury. Supporting the product and taking its risks is not the same as acquiring treasury governance rights. A distribution to stAMPL holders would be a compromise we choose, not an entitlement that comes with the token. FORTH was the token used to govern that treasury, so starting with FORTH holders makes sense to me.

People have proposed different allocation rules, but I haven’t seen a staffed, budgeted plan for ecosystem growth. Rather than just add to the criticism, I’d suggest a small change to the initial distribution proposal:

• Keep the initial FORTH distribution.
• Snapshot AMPL exposure on December 1 as well, including wAMPL, SPOT and stAMPL.
• Give those holders three months to claim the funds left unclaimed after the FORTH round.
• Put the final remainder toward AMPL liquidity.

We would need clear allocation rules that respect the different tranche claims and don’t count the same underlying AMPL twice.

For example, suppose your stAMPL holdings represents a claim worth 2,000 AMPL at the snapshot. If total AMPL supply is 2,000,000 AMPL, your share is 0.1%. You would receive 0.1% of the funds available in the second round, not 0.1% of the original treasury.

That would be a discretionary compromise, not an existing entitlement, and it would leave less for liquidity.

[Fuark]

A relaunch on base with operation bootstrap would be my suggestion. One plan for ecosystem growth using the funds would be to restart the original initiative the team came up with for that exact purpose: Operation Bootstrap. Once the macro market environment improves, restarting Operation Bootstrap using the treasury could be an option, with everything made open source after the operation is completed. This would benefit the entire ecosystem. The goal of the initiative was to create a strong on-ramp for new users into the Ampleforth ecosystem. Migrating things to base with a relaunch might also improve the direction of things. Breath of fresh air and all.

The thing is, based on the team’s behavior over the past year, I’m getting the strong impression that they simply want to be done with the AMPL ecosystem and move on to 2FactorFinance. They havent even fixed the bug on the vault website of tranches not loading for almost a year.

Many users were unable to withdraw their assets from the vault because the tranches wouldn’t load throughout the past year. This bug was repeatedly brought to the team’s attention on Discord, but it was ignored. Now, they are shutting down a vault from which many users were and still are unable to withdraw their deposited assets from, without offering any compensation. There has been obvious negligence on the team’s part.

A considerable number of people were onboarded into the vault through Operation Bootstrap. However, once the initiative was brought to a premature close, many users were unable to withdraw their funds or struggled to do so because the tranches wouldn’t load.

Anyway, my main suggestion would be to relaunch on base and then restart operation bootstrap and fix the bugs on the vault/website. After that revisit spot and return it to its flatcoin state before the change was made in 2025. After all that finally making everything opensource so community members could host it, fix issues and provide support like you said earlier. Moving everything to base to reinvigorate things with a soft relaunch could work. With a relaunch on base the work the team has done wouldn’t go to waste either. From what I can gather the team gets assistance and has a more fun/easier time building on base. I think that’s a part of the reason for the pivot. A relaunch on base chain would legit be a breath of fresh air.

That’s the plan I came up with and I can expand on it if need be. Even if there was a good plan I don’t know how far it would get because the team just wants to move on. They created expectations for the ecosystem and then stalled and didn’t deliver like you said earlier.

[Fuark]

To add to that, only 25 addresses participated in the vote by delegating their votes to 6 addresses, with just 1M FORTH out of the 10M in circulation being used to vote during the governance attack on the FORTH DAO. 25 addresses participated out of 24,285 addresses holding FORTH.

The FORTH holders who will receive a treasury allocation didn’t even participate in governance during its darkest hour. The entire treasury was at risk. If the malicious proposal had passed, there would have been no treasury left to distribute. Yet only 1M FORTH out of the 10M in circulation was used to vote in governance.

Most FORTH holders didn’t acquire the token with the intention of participating in governance. We both know this. They acquired it based on speculation.

This proposed sunset would reward speculators over the people who kept SPOT running and believed in the vision. It would overlook those who remained in the vault through the project’s ups and downs because they believed in what it stood for.

I honestly believe most FORTH holders don’t know about governance or what it actually governs. Using your logic, one could argue that only people who have participated in governance and exercised their governance rights in the past should receive an allocation from the treasury.

I bet a significant portion of FORTH holders don’t even know what FORTH is supposed to govern. Wallets belonging to exchanges that delisted FORTH but still hold the token would also receive an allocation. The same goes for speculators and people who bought FORTH on centralized exchanges without any particular reason or intention to participate in governance or the ecosystem. Like common we are talking about 24,285 FORTH holders.

Many FORTH holders never participated in governance, yet when it comes to treasury allocation, they’re somehow more deserving than active vault participants?

[Brandon]

Thanks everyone for the spirited feedback. I’m hearing a number of things. I disagree on many, agree on some. I’ll go through each and also step back a bit for context.

Regarding @Togenkyo 's point about the distribution date and whether that should be in the future or retroactive… A retroactive date is a natural idea and we did also start there when drafting the proposal. If I were to choose a date in the past, it would have been around Aug 25th actually, or slightly earlier when it seems the governance proposer began accumulating. So why not?

If you use a date in the past, all the stakeholders who held their assets off chain are left out. These users need notice to be able to move them onchain first. This also applies to liquidity providers, those who haven’t claimed their FORTH geyser rewards, and anyone who doesn’t hold their FORTH tokens in a self-custodied wallet. Some commenters here hold some distrust of CEXs it seems. These same commenters should support empowering individuals. Choosing a date in the future is very much aligned with that.

Regarding filtering, should we filter addresses? For example the tally proposers, the CEX wallets, or the LP manager contracts? None of these addresses did anything wrong. I put this in italics, because I think it’s important. This also ties into the idea that picking a date in the future will just lead to a month of speculation around the FORTH token.

We’re discussing a sunset now because the market was not leading to the proper valuation of the FORTH token, according to the fundamentals of the DAO treasury and the protocol governance responsibilities. Just like Balancer and the many other DAOs of our generation shutting down, when the value of the token goes below the claimable value, operations fail and lose order. In a perfect world, FORTH should always have been valued according to these metrics. This is what would have provided security. The time between now and a future claim date shouldn’t be viewed as exceptional. It really just allows the market to more easily do what it should have been able to do all along.

Secondly, we need a defensible, rules based approach with as little discretion as possible. Excluding anyone or choosing a past date with outside logic would need to be justified and overcome a high bar. Just like equity, or vault notes, 1 FORTH token is one unit of stakeholder value of the DAO.

Centralized exchanges took on risk hosting and trading the FORTH token. So did market makers. Many of these do not (or cannot) participate in public channels for legitimate reasons. But we can still uphold legitimate blockchain ideals and treat addresses equally. If you buy into decentralized applications on the blockchain where users can self custody and operate via cryptographic addresses, you must respect these ideas.

Finally, the bulk of the distribution discussion is around the USDC piece. Where did these assets come from? It came from FORTH token operations. I.e. FORTH tokens being let into the market via normal market maker activity over time. If anyone was directly impacted by those ops, it was FORTH holders first and foremost.

AMPL holders are also FORTH holders. If you’re an OG AMPLer, you received a very generous airdrop. If you came later, in addition to the ownership of AMPL, you had access to geyser programs that distributed FORTH ownership.

All of the above are clear supporting reasons for the first stage of distribution. The original proposal suggested using the remaining funds for AMPL liquidity. I still think this is the most effective way of providing the longest lasting support to AMPL. One of the running goals of the DAO was, after all, to develop forever liquidity so we never needed to rely on inflationary geyser programs. We have talked many times about this goal on the forums. This is a chance for the DAO to give one final delivery there.

We suggested this second stage because we truly do want to help AMPL in the best way possible. For deep and various reasons, Spot did not live up to our hopes and dreams as a flatcoin/store of value. But AMPL is still alive and I hope it always will be. This team, and this community, has put so much time, effort, and love into building these systems, it would be a shame to waste the opportunity for a real and lasting impact.

[Fuark]

The team seems determined not to resume DAO operations or continue SPOT/STAMPL development. They also aren’t changing their stance on treasury distribution, arguing that this is what’s best for AMPL.

They haven’t just sunset SPOT and FORTH; through their continued behavior, they’ve also driven away the AMPL community. Even Ampltools has left.

That final liquidity injection during the last stage of treasury distribution won’t make a meaningful, lasting impact. Instead, it’ll serve as the last bit of exit liquidity for anyone still left. I don’t believe this will benefit AMPL or its community in the best possible way. I think everyone, including the team, knows this. I just assumed they might throw people who invested in SPOT a bone during the sunset, but I guess I was wrong.

After the sunset, make no mistake: all that’ll be left is an ERC-20 token that has shifted price volatility to supply volatility. In other words, it’ll be just a plain ERC-20 token with no future development, no treasury, no community, and no use case. SPOT was supposed to be the use case.

People in the vault who believed in SPOT are left with just 0.5–1% of what they put in. In most cases, they’ll probably be left with nothing, since the tranches don’t load and redeeming from the vault is extremely difficult, with no compensation from the DAO.

Oh well, I tried my hardest. RIP.