- Atom Accelerator DAO has ousted its general manager.
- Central to the dispute were a pay raise and planned performance bonuses.
- It’s the latest controversy in Cosmos Hub, which is reeling as its token slides this year.
The atom finally split.
The co-founder and general manager of Atom Accelerator DAO, a crypto cooperative that has distributed millions of dollars to support a Cosmos cryptocurrency, was ousted last week.
The cause: a dispute surrounding Amrani’s pay and the issuance of performance bonuses.
Employees of the Atom cooperative unanimously voted on September 25 to remove general manager Youssef Amrani. His final day with the organisation was September 30.
The drama is a big deal in Cosmos.
Endowed with millions in crypto, the cooperative has a dual mandate: boosting the Cosmos Hub blockchain and the ATOM token, both of which were once meant to lie at the heart of Cosmos, the “internet of blockchains.”
The efforts have yet to pay off: Despite Atom Accelerator’s doling out crypto grants worth more than $6 million to more than 80 organisations, ATOM has fallen almost 60% since January 1, prompting soul-searching among the blockchain’s proponents.
A reckoning
Amrani’s ouster has prompted a reckoning at the cooperative.
Co-founder Ryan Orr declined to lead the organisation going forward, and suggested it either disband or find someone “who wants to lead a community renewal mandate process.”
Communications head Syed Choudhury said he would leave by year’s end. Controller Patricia Mizuki, who was the first to raise questions about the bonuses, announced she would do the same.
There’s more: The cooperative has received a “legal demand letter” from an unnamed “former contributor” demanding 12 months’ pay for dismissal without cause and defamation, according to Choudhury.
Additionally, the cooperative will review grants made during Amrani’s tenure to seek evidence of possible favouritism or nepotism, Choudhury said.
Amrani did not return DL News’ request for comment.
Cosmos Hub adrift
The ouster is the latest controversy to rock Cosmos, a network of interconnected blockchains that once held great promise as a means for scaling blockchain technology.
The Cosmos network was initially envisioned as having a hub-and-spoke model with Cosmos Hub at its centre. But its developers instead built software allowing its myriad blockchains to interact with one another directly.
After spending several years adrift, Cosmos Hub has taken tentative steps toward reinventing itself — an effort Atom Accelerator funded via grants to various developers, according to one member.
‘Why does the Hub exist?’
— Atom insider
Nevertheless, its lack of a clear mission or purpose was “the reason for all our drama,” the insider said, asking that they not be named so they could speak candidly about the events that led to Amrani’s ouster. “Why does the Hub exist?”
Last month, the Interchain Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit backing Cosmos, faced a vote of no confidence over suspicion its leadership mismanaged funds meant to promote the network’s development.
Persistent advocacy
Behind both the ICF vote and Amrani’s ouster is crusading strategy consultant Grace Yu, who during several skirmishes with Cosmos leadership has earned respect for her persistent advocacy as well as frustration from those who see her style as unnecessarily adversarial and unyielding.
Atom Accelerator was founded by Amrani and Orr in 2023, with a small, mostly part-time staff funded by Cosmos Hub.
The hub’s validators voted in December 2023 to give Atom Accelerator almost 1 million additional ATOM tokens, worth more than $8 million at the time, to fund its efforts for 2024. Another 100,000 tokens were set aside for performance and retention bonuses.
‘The bonus pool should not be misused to ‘reward’ unexceptional performance.’
— Grace Yu
The text of the proposal included a link to a document titled “AADAO Performance and Retention Bonus Protocol.” According to that document, Atom Accelerator employees deemed to be meeting expectations would be eligible for a “middle tier performance bonus.”
Earlier this year, Yu was elected to a position on the cooperative’s oversight committee.
“The bonus pool should not be misused to ‘reward’ unexceptional performance that merely ‘meets expectations,’” she wrote in a September report detailing concerns with Youssef’s stewardship of the cooperative.
“Additionally, given the current price action of ATOM, the proposed methodology is all the more indefensible.”
While Cosmos Hub validators approved the bonus package, its details were tucked away in a hard-to-find online document that few had seen, Yu said.
She also took issue with Amrani’s decision to give himself a 36% raise at the start of 2024 and to use employees’ 2024 salaries to determine their monthly “retention bonus,” paid in ATOM.
After accounting for his monthly “retention bonus,” Amrani made between $17,000 and $21,000 each month, according to Yu, and received half of the ATOM set aside for retention bonuses.
A ‘dangerous negative spiral’
The oversight committee refused to approve the performance bonus payouts in August. In September, Yu detailed her misgivings on the Atom Accelerator forum.
The debate over Amrani’s management of Atom Accelerator unspooled over hundreds of messages in which both sides accused the other of using anonymous accounts to create the impression they enjoyed broad support.
Critics contended on the Atom Accelerator forum that he intended to use the bonus pool to reward work that wasn’t deserving of such recognition, among other things.
Amrani defended his pay, arguing his base salary was within a bracket approved by Cosmos Hub validators and he had taken on substantially more work in 2024.
He also said Yu’s actions were “political” and “wild overreach.”
“ATOM is currently at a crossroads and what we need right now is an AADAO org that has a culture of peak operational performance – and not a culture of internal investigations – if we are to have a chance of saving the Hub from the dangerous negative spiral it has embarked on the past year,” he wrote on the forum.
“I have made a couple of small mistakes over the past years, and Grace makes it her full time job to dig up the issues, sensationalise them, and present them to the community in the worst possible light.”
Sabotage attempt
Additionally, Amrani levelled several accusations of his own.
The Atom general manager accused Yu of attempting to sabotage Cosmos Hub to benefit a rival blockchain, and Mizuki of seeking vengeance after he rejected what he described as her attempt to secure a greater share of the bonus pool.
Both women denied the accusations. A recent proposal that included language censuring Mizuki — and admonishing Atom Accelerator’s board — was ultimately rejected.
Collateral damage
Despite the unanimous vote to fire Amrani, some have expressed frustration with Yu’s tactics.
The insider said they were worried the controversy would irrevocably damage the organisation.
“Grace’s heart is in the right place,” they said. “The problem is the collateral damage.”
Now, its members are wondering whether to seek additional funding for 2025.
“AADAO, which is essentially the only body left [that’s] paying actual attention to the Hub, will maybe vanish too,” the insider said.
‘This current approach is akin to chemotherapy.’
— Kevin Garrison, Cosmos validator
Cosmos Hub validator Kevin Garrison joined the fray, decrying what he called Yu’s “victory lap.”
“Well-done oversight achieves the desired effect without killing the organisation,” he wrote on X. “This current approach is akin to chemotherapy. If we kill every cell, we’ll get the cancer out too.”
At least one software developer, Evmos founder Federico Kunze Küllmer, said he would indefinitely pause his project’s planned integration with the Cosmos Hub.
Fallout
For her part, Yu told DL News her critics were missing the point: Oversight couldn’t hold leadership to account if it was overly concerned about the fallout, she said
“We’re, as Oversight members, were not seeking a victory or engaging in a win/lose scenario,” Yu said.
“There seemed to be disbelief among some members that we were actually fulfilling our mandate.”
Update, October 11: This story was updated to include additional details regarding the reason for AADAO’s termination of Youssef Amrani and to clarify the purpose of its September 26 vote.
Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.
