# Introduction Ever dreamt of owning your own validator? You've come to the right place. We're an ambitious DAO-owned validator with our sights on the top. # The opportunity The validator landscape is competitive. To gain delegators and a seat at the table of hot new chains, you need to distinguish yourself and provide value. Today, most incumbent validators are mostly interchangeable. They show the same characteristics: their infrastructure runs on common cloud providers, and they offer little tertiary value to the chains on which they validate. In contrast, we stand out by offering several unique value propositions: * Validators and other supportive chain-related services run in underrepresented geographical locations and jurisdictions (such as Iceland) as well as on dePIN solutions (such as Akash). This aids decentralization, and appeals to foundations, who often have significant delegation programmes in place that allocate according to contributions and value-add. * Being DAO-owned, we can provide chains with hypercharged networking, outreach, and propaganda. This also appeals to chains and their foundations. * Thanks to network effects, we will have a large network that chain-building teams can leverage for connections, fundraising, and consultancy We're confident these qualities will appeal strongly to foundations to onboard us to upcoming testnets (and ultimately mainnets). Read on to understand our strategy as it exists today. # (O, D) Our goal is to become the #1 validator measured by stake - or, assets under management.\ \ We get there through game theory. All other things being equal, it will always be +ev to delegate coins to a validator that you own a part of rather than a third party who will take a cut in fees. Olympus had (3, 3). We have (O, D): Own + Delegate. \ \ This is the basic idea that in time will make us a black hole of stake. # Phase 1: Mindshare In this first phase, our focus will be on gaining mindshare, especially towards teams building L1 chains. We will do this by: 1. Expanding our set of testnet & mainnet validators 2. Continue operating AAA public RPC and relaying services. We're already a top relayer on certain chains 3. Growing our treasury 4. Increasing $VDO holder count and capacity for outreach. Timeline for this is brief: EoY into January. # Phase 2: Foothold In our second phase, our DAO will already have: * A large holder and follower count * A large group of engaged and capable contributors * Transferred its treasury wallet to a multisig operated by select DAO members * A track record of technical expertise, and operational excellence in testnets & mainnets * Be a top relayer and rpc provider This foundation will give us leverage to join highly coveted testnets. Generally, testnet participation ultimately leads to a genesis mainnet spot with foundation delegations, and is pretty much the only way that you can enter most new chains with a cap on validator count unless you're an investor. Thus, in this phase, we will be heads-down working on above-and-beyond participation in testnets on from a technical perspective, but also from a marketing perspective. Expect this in Q1-Q2 2024 # Phase 3: Liftoff In this phase, we are comfortably running several mainnet validators across cosmos and elsewhere and are generating revenue from these. At this point and moving forward, we will look to become operators in liquid staking protocols such as Lido, SSV, frxEth, Jito, Stride. Furthermore, with us generating revenue, governance will take over ande decide on how to manage our profits, taking decisions such as: * Buybacks and burn? * Run promotional campaigns to grow delegator count on any specific chain? * Participate in funding rounds for new L1s? The last point is worth emphasizing: as a large validator, we will get access to dealflow typically reserved for VCs, including participating in funding rounds for upcoming chains. With a large warchest and astute insights from our familiarity with the L1 space, such opportunities can be large drivers of future revenue. This phase will largely be about building a good DAO structure. Expect this in Q2-Q3 2024 # Phase 4: Cruise This phase can be considered the endgame. Here, we are a highly respected validator, likely with a VC arm, across several mainnets. It's difficult to predict what ValiDAO will look like at this stage since we are a DAO and will need to collectively decide. But this cofounder thinks that it would be cool to build our own physical datacenter. It would also be cool to run a satellite validator in space. Food for thought. # Distribution $VDO has a total supply of `10,000,000` The token distribution at TGE: * 10% team * 10% future incentives * 80% community (LP) The 10% allocated to *future incentives* will be used to strategically acquire stake on certain mainnet chains in our beginnings. It will also be used as compensation to early contributors. \ \ The treasury will continue to strategically buy back tokens for these purposes and, ultimately, burn the majority of these buybacks. # Treasury spending $VDO trades with a 3/3 tax currently, which will gradually be lowered as our treasury grows. 1% is redirected towards the LP, and the rest of the taxes go towards building our treasury, which will grow our DAO until we're generating sufficient revenue from mainnet validators. The taxes fund the following: * **INFRA & OPERATIONS** πŸ›°οΈ * Continued operational expenses for compute and networking resources, relayers, etc * **BUYBACKS** 🐾 * To incentivize delegations on mainnet validators, we'll frequently buy back tokens * **RESEARCH AND MARKETING πŸ“£** * We'll be hiring an agency to help produce quality research that will result in articles and twitter threads. This will be a part of how we simp for the chains we want to run on, and already run on. * **SELF-DELEGATION πŸͺ™** * Before gaining mindshare and legitimacy we need to enter some mainnets with our own stake, self-delegated. * **SLASHING INSURANCE πŸ”ͺπŸ©ΈπŸŒ‚** * As an assurance to delegators and to promote our staking services, we will have funds at hand to reimburse any slashing events, in the highly unlikely case that such an event should occur. Our current target is equivalent to 0.05% of all AUM # FAQ ## **What are we?** We are a validator. But not just your run-of-the-mill validator. We distinguish ourselves by being a DAO, and by operating critical infrastructure in remote places where no one else is doing it, such as in Iceland. In that sense we like to present ourselves as being the validator equivalent of locally-sourced, free-range, organic, seed-oil free produce: we're most likely a good addition to your chain! ## **What do we want to do?** We are building a decentralized validator entity. We want to decentralize validator infrastructure and let you own a part of the validator you're delegating to - (O, D). ## **What does (O, D) signify?** We want to allow everyone to own a part of our validators, and earn from the value that their self-brought stake generates. Own + Delegate (O, D) is our moniker for the game theory of compounding and exponential impacts of collective ownership or a validator. Where there is overlap of owners of VDO and owners of coins of other chains on which we delegate, there will be increased incentive to delegate to us rather than any other validator. Doing so will increase the value of your share of ValiDAO, at zero extra cost to you. ## **What do we do?** Our main business is operating validators. But we also run related services such as RPCs, IBC relayers, DA nodes, and more. ## **What is a validator?** A validator is an entity who participates in PoS consensus. They are responsible for attesting to the validity of transactions, and proposing new blocks. For this, they receive revenue from the underlying protocol in the form of fees + block rewards. They are the PoS equivalent of miners. ## **What is an (IBC) relayer?** IBC is an inter-blockchain-communication protocol, native to most cosmos chains. IBC the protocol relies on IBC relayers (such as ourselves) to relay transactions between different blockchains, and ensure that messages are correctly transferred and acknowledged. This enables interoperability between chains. They are not directly related to validation activities, but is still something we do to support the Interchain ecosystem. ## **Wen DAO?** Once the infra is in place for a seamless transition. We are aware of the common pitfall DAOs face and want to guarantee ValiDAO the highest chance of continued longevity and success. ## **Why token?** All things equal, it will always be +ev to own part of the validator you are delegating your tokens to instead of a third party that takes a cut in fees. We believe a token allows the best way to facilitate community ownership and decentralize our services.