JUNO's Moment of Truth: Reform or Die

The greatest strength of the Juno network lies in its community-driven and community-funded approach, devoid of any venture capital influences. This has given Juno a significant niche within the Web3 sphere.

However, this strength has also turned out to be one of Juno’s greatest weaknesses.

For example, individuals who have coding skills (a great asset in the Web3 space) do not necessarily possess sound business acumen, and many such individuals have risen to positions of leadership and control within the Juno community. This has led to a system where community resources (such as JUNO tokens) have been disproportionately allocated to community leaders, who are expected to single-handedly address issues that many of the leaders are not equipped to address.

This approach ignores Juno’s greatest strength and fails to focus on its greatest resource: The community members at our disposal. It is crucial to shift toward a model where the contributions of Juno community members are encouraged, utilized, recognized, and rewarded.

The question is: How should Juno progress from here?

1. The Juno core team must relinquish their vesting. Having a leadership position should not on its own be rewarded. The core team members may then be reevaluated and rewarded based on their contributions rather than simply possession of a leadership position.

2. A process for identifying and rewarding substantive contributions to the community must be established.

- If community members like @CryptoTank and @CosmosDefi are willing to create content and draw attention to the new community, attracting new participants, the value added by these efforts should be evaluated, and these efforts should be funded

- If a community member like @DonCryptonium wishes to create engaging content and shitpost, even these efforts are worthy of compensation if new members join the community or existing members deepen their engagement

- If @RacoonSupply or Gelotto develop open-source code that is useful and may onboard more users, this should be funded

- @RAC_FM Twitter Spaces continues to serve as a vibrant community hub for conversation and growth. Why has this never been financially supported?

The Juno network is in need of an overhaul. Most notably, the Juno network cannot afford to fund community members or projects because at its core, the Juno network does not make money. If Juno were to fund an immensely successful project, the only money Juno would make from this venture would be the very small transaction fees that are generated each time the project is used. This has caused developers who seek funding to be viewed as grifters. After all, why would Juno fund development of an app when Juno does not make money on the app?

Along these lines, because Juno does not earn revenue, Juno does not have significant amounts of discretionary income to spend on marketing and community engagement.

The fundamental tokenomics and network architecture must change. Juno must make money through utility, not investment alone. Juno must include value capture mechanisms, low inflation, and a structured process to incentivize development of high-quality apps that will be used, and whose use will cause revenue to be accrued by Juno. In short, even though community-driven, Juno must still be run like a business.

The stark reality is that most people in the crypto world, including founders and leaders of Juno (and much of the IBC ecosystem) lack a clear understanding of what they are doing. We need to shift our focus toward establishing strong foundations, akin to those of Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and others. Too often, individuals in the crypto space overlook the fundamentals of modern economics and basic business practices. It is hopelessly naïve to believe that launching a random L1 token in an ocean of blockchains will magically attract users simply because it is cryptocurrency.

So what is the key takeaway? Leaders who do not add value should step aside. Leaders who continue to contribute meaningfully must recognize their limitations and enlist the help of other community members where needed – who should be compensated. We must never forget that Juno’s power stems from its community.

The value of the Juno community and the lack of venture capital interference is what initially attracted Gelotto to the Juno network.

In the absence of the changes in focus outlined above, it is our opinion that the Juno network will not succeed. Gelotto intends to push for these changes within the community. If progress is not made, Gelotto intends to separate from Juno and establish its own chain, incorporating the strategies outlined above.