@dwr

Protocol fees update We’re planning to move Farcaster protocol fees to a custody platform in the next few days. Protocol fees are funds the protocol receives for sign-ups, storage purchases, pro subscriptions, and collectible auctions. We’re moving these funds for two reasons: security and stability. Security -- While our contracts are thoroughly audited, we believe Coinbase Custody offers better and simpler security as our balances grow. Stability -- We also want to reduce some of the volatility on these balances so that we can pay them out to creators and developers. Today storage fees are entirely in ETH which has fluctuated more than 100% in the last year. Our plan is to diversify this between ETH, BTC and USDC. --- FAQ 1. Does Merkle plan to pay these out as rewards? To date, Merkle has paid out more than $1 million in rewards and retroactive grants from our corporate balance sheet. We have not used protocol fees yet, but we plan to start doing this in the future as we scale rewards and retroactive grants. 2. Why Coinbase? Coinbase manages hundreds of billions of crypto on behalf of some of the largest organizations in the world. They have smart, simple defaults to keep funds safe. Additionally, it will allow us to more easily manage the treasury across assets. 3. Will the asset ownership be transparent? No immediate plans. For now we’re optimizing for a pragmatic and simple approach. As balances grow, we’ll likely iterate and publish regular disclosures. Eventually, we may shift to a more decentralized solution.

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