Sunsetting the $TEC: Proposal & Treasury Distribution Framework

[DecentralizeSDGs]

Dear community, as someone who joined at hatch and has stayed the course despite numerous challenging moments I am a firm believer that neither the community nor the $TEC should unwound at this time, particularly given the onset of a new cryptocurrency boom cycle that is creating renewed attention and investment in the Web3 space.

Historically, such cycles present prime opportunities for communities and DAOs with strong foundations to expand their impact and relevance. TEC has spent years cultivating a reputation at the intersection of systems engineering, tokenomics, and public goods, precisely the areas gaining momentum with the resurgence of interest in decentralized coordination and various tokenized systems.

Retroactive public goods funding, a mechanism pioneered and popularized by projects like Optimism, is now a fast-evolving domain where TEC’s mission-aligned tooling, community, and thought leadership position it uniquely to capture value and further its vision.

Dissolving TEC now would mean abandoning this hard-won positioning just as the ecosystem is turning back toward the principles it has long advocated.

Furthermore, the continued existence and growth of TEC should be centered on the revitalization of token utility, not merely preservation for its own sake.

If the community chooses not to unwind, it should do so with a clear commitment to a roadmap for enhancing the utility of the TEC token, whether through curation of funding rounds, governance participation in emerging ReFi protocols, or providing infrastructure for evaluating and funding high-impact engineering work.

Token utility should serve as the engine that drives engagement, aligns incentives, and attracts builders and funders alike. This moment presents a rare convergence of timing, relevance, and community expertise; unwinding now would be a strategic misstep when TEC has the potential to play a central role in shaping the next phase of the decentralized economy.

[vegayp]

I really don’t have a strong opinion on this.

TEC gave me much more than what I could ever payback, that being said, I think the project sunsetting sounds right. I would make sure all the databases of knowledge would remain and as @JeffEmmett mentioned, it feels more like that we are sunsetting the economic layer.

What to do with the remaining funds? I’d give it back 100% back to the token holders, we never were great at distributing funds matching our mission (with exceptions) and I think it’s about time that we don’t repeat the same history again. Of course, I’d put that as a our last governance experiment: people should have the option to vote wether the sunsetting leads to the funds back to the token holders or does it go to public goods. The distribution mechanism, I’d just talk to Gitcoin and make one finale round sponsored with all the funds left.

[liviade]

Hi everyone, It’s honestly heartwarming to see this chat alive.

After hearing from 41 token engineers in the TE Stakeholder Study, one thing became clear to me. this discipline is about ethics, safety, and rigor. These qualities swim directly against neoliberal design practices. Rigor costs more, ethics extract less. And a lack of safety is only tolerable for those who can afford to lose, while a lack of ethics puts losses on those who can’t.

I agree with @gideonro that Token Engineering feels ahead of its time, or maybe even out of its time. The mainstream adoption of crypto has been slowly introducing these systems to mainstream behavioral patterns, which are still wired to centralized, hierarchical, enclosed, and extractive logics. There is a lot to be transformed to tap into the novel potential of token-based systems.

Ostrom, at the beginning of Governing the Commons, speaks about how her case studies were all local and how she didn’t know how the principles would operate at scale. Further research was needed. In many ways, the TEC has touched that experimental ground. SO much value was produced here. The TEC was a fundamental funder of the TE Academy, which has educated thousands in the space. It funded research pieces and groups, tools, libraries, contributed to commons-based cultural education, welcomed and guided many to find their passion and agency, even if for a brief moment, and introduced many community members to impactful projects, each one carrying a seed of TE and commons wisdom.

To this day, whenever I interact with DAOs, coops, research projects, or residencies, I refer to the TEC as the biggest organizational school I’ve experienced. Relational wisdom is a fundamental contribution to economics. Undermining the value TEC has built here shows just how much we still need to learn about sustainable economic design.

If I were to name one of TEC’s biggest mistakes (and one I see across many crypto projects), it would be not having a robust income model baked into its token infrastructure. But this isn’t something to punish ourselves with. It’s something to learn from while observing the wider struggle across projects trying to fund public goods. For generations, economic design has been based on extracting natural resources. Now, faced with a polycrisis and environmental depletion, it’s no surprise we struggle as a society to understand regenerative mechanisms, especially because the results of experimentation are still being incorporated and analyzed.

I could say much more, so many reflections surface. Ironically, I sold my TEC tokens just a few days before @rex told me about this proposal, because I hadn’t been involved in governance for some time and didn’t feel like the token represented my feelings for the community. The truth is, I am still involved in token engineering research, infused with the learnings from the TEC, and I feel very much part of it. Like @JeffEmmett said, there’s an important distinction between community and token economy, and I believe there’s a rich layer of reflection to explore there.

I know this is a late expression, and I’m not addressing practical points because I think they were stressed enough and I won’t be voting on them, but I just wanted to make myself present and available. My gratitude and admiration to everyone who has been involved and stewarding things here.

[octopus]

Hello friends:

8_appreciate the people who made me aware of this proposal. For various reasons, 8_just_now feel right about adding my thoughts. Part of the delay: needing to take time to process and emotions about the event, and clarify my own thoughts.

First and foremost::8m incredibly grateful to the people in the TEC for the experiences and conversations 8ve had here. Over the past four years, 8ve been able to engage in professional and personal work that 8_was_afraid would always remain unfulfilled dreams. 8m hopeful that there can be some kind of call where 8_can praise people, or some other venue to delve more deeply into the impact that y’all had on me over the years.

8ve also seen where people have mentioned the possibility of @octopus as being involved in potential retrospectives and postmortems on certain technical aspects of the TEC system design, such as Augmented Bonding Curves. This is flattering, and certainly something 8d be open to, in principle. 8m planning to write another post where we can discuss the details of retrospectives/reviews/postmortems can look like.

8think the TEC as an organization has fulfilled its mission admirably. To name just one project with which 8 did work closely, the TE Fundamentals course (created by TE Academy and funded by the TEC) was an immense success. 8 also enjoyed the invited talks 8 gave at the Bonding Curves Research Group, as well as the X/Twitter Spaces with @natesuits. Will stop here for reasons of space.

A huge thank you to all of y’all.