First, I want to express my respect and appreciation for what Brianna has done here. She saw an issue, took the initiative, and tried to propose a solution. I think that deserves recognition, and I think she has done it in a mostly thoughtful and respectful way.
That said, I clearly disagree with her conclusions and with the actions she is advocating for. In my view, they rest on faulty assumptions, including the idea that we can simply rely on off-the-shelf RSK nodes without properly reckoning with the actual costs and risks involved, or that the Sovryn team hasn’t already been streamlined to address the bear market. The team is made up of the minimum number of people needed to run the protocol. Perhaps the most important error I have seen repeated is that the fee-sharing contract was exploited or changed to no longer be controlled by Bitocracy. This contract has never been, and was never intended to be controlled by Bitocracy, and if it were controlled by Bitocracy, only Bitocracy would be able to change it.
I also want to be clear about one important procedural point: the last two SIPs were explicitly designed as proclamations. Proclamations are expressions of sentiment or position; they are not executable proposals. For that reason, they cannot be treated as binding instructions for operational action, and no action will be taken on that basis.
Let me also be clear about what is at stake here. If we are not able to reliably support infrastructure and team costs, then the protocol becomes insecure. And if the protocol is insecure, then everything else becomes secondary. There are very large amounts of other people’s money at stake.
My number one priority is simple: maintain the security, integrity, and availability of the protocol and the funds held within it.
Generating value for SOV holders and stakers, of which I am one, is the second priority. But it cannot come ahead of the first. If the protocol fails, SOV fails with it.
So while I understand, and to some extent share, the frustration some SOV stakers feel, that frustration does not change the underlying reality. Income must exceed expenses. Exchequer needs to maintain a deeper balance, both to absorb the natural variability in protocol income and to provide a cushion for unexpected costs.
The last two SIPs do nothing to address that reality. They do not discuss it, and they do not even acknowledge it. Sovryn was built around the principle that security comes first. Bitocracy exists first and foremost as a vetocracy, to make it difficult for any actor to arbitrarily interfere with contracts and user funds. The Guardian multisig exists to veto dangerous SIPs that somehow still make it through. Exchequer exists to directly manage protocol-owned funds - among other reasons, to be able to act in a timely fashion without the delays and uncertainty of a SIP process. This separation of powers is not just some abstract design principle. It is part of the practical structure that has helped keep user funds safe in a highly adversarial environment for more than five years.
Bitocracy can, of course, evolve this setup over time. But that would require a much more serious discussion about protocol longevity, safety, and trade-offs, and a much clearer articulation of the alternative.
In the meantime, the priority has to remain the same: ensuring the security and continuity of the protocol and the safety of user funds. No rushed governance-driven action should be allowed to compromise that.
An updated Exchequer report is in progress and will be shared when it is ready.
All efforts should remain focused on the central priority: preserving the security and longevity of the protocol and protecting the funds entrusted to it. Anything that does not address that is, at minimum, not sufficient to deal with the actual issue in front of us.