This Week in Governance - June 2

A weekly resource covering DAO news and governance

Duncan Dobbelmann

Jun 02, 2022

📊 This Week’s Stats

A snapshot of DAO governance activity and global treasury changes.

Ecosystem Overview:

Governance Activity - Last 7 Days:

🗳️ 9,747 ballots were cast on 156 different proposals 🗳️
👥 4,741 unique voters 👥
🌐 45 DAOs with active voters 🌐
✍️ 94 new proposals created ✍️

For a deeper dive into DAO governance data, check out the Dashboard.

🚢 Product Updates

You can now delegate your votes on Boardroom, easily. Just connect your wallet, navigate to the governance section of the project you’re interested in, and select your delegate. You’ll see the voting power and voting history for each delegate, among other useful pieces of information.

🗞️ News in Brief

Optimism’s launched its airdrop with some hiccups and is now live
Dework: A LinkedIn for DAOs?
Llama features its on-chain analytics work with Dune
This letter to Congress, ICYMI (not directly about DAOs)
Commonwealth and Utopia announce their Series A fundraises to build the future of DAO operating systems
Thing3 and Metacartel Ventures launch Hydra Ventures, a community-run investment DAO (fund of funds) that looks to invest and incubate a whole ecosystem of investment DAOs.

📚 Good Reads & Listens

“Legitimacy Lost,” by Li Jin and Katie Parrot
“The State of Uniswap Governance: A Paradox of Minimization,” by Other Internet
“Ultimate Guide to Metagovernance,” by Ben Giove
“Gnosis: The Quintessential DAO Tool, Featuring Stefan George”, on I Pledge Allegiance with @derek_hsue.
“Understanding DAOs and How to Scale them (Yury Lifshits),” on DAOn the Rabbit Hole with @anay_sim
Illegible Enterprises: DAOs, Unwrapped,” by Mike Wawsczcak

📝 Highlighted Proposals

Each week we select noteworthy proposals to draw your attention to. See all proposals on your Boardroom Dashboard.

1) Nouns DAO: Mint a PoolTogether Judge NFT

🔤 ELI5: Mint an NFT to support defendants in the lawsuit against PoolTogether et al.

This proposal sought support to mint one Judge Pooly NFT (75 ETH) to contribute to the PoolTogether NFT collection meant to help fund the defense of PoolTogether and others named in a class-action lawsuit. While considered frivolous by some, the lawsuit, as described by The Wall Street Journal, is also seen as a test of certain core DeFi principles, including decentralization: “the lawsuit could be among the first to squarely address the question of who is legally accountable when a DeFi application—known as a ‘protocol’—is at odds with the law or causes actionable harm to a user.” Some have noted a possible ideological motivation for the lawsuit (cryptocurrencies are portrayed as bad for the environment, for example). Others note that it is less about cryptocurrency than about whether an illegal lottery was being run. In the Nouns DAO discussion, one commenter urges those interested to study the lawsuit itself closely before committing funds (and Nouns’ reputation) in support of the defendants.

57.8% abstained; 40% voted against
See the discussion
View the Proposal

2) LinksDAO: Course Sourcing and Management Selection

🔤 ELI5: Seeking approval for a partner to find and manage a golf course.

LinksDAO, “a global community of golf enthusiasts in web3 reimagining the modern golf and leisure club” is “on a mission to own one of the world’s greatest golf courses,” and hopes with this proposal to secure approval to negotiate and come to terms with a partner to source and manage its first golf course. A great deal of industry-specific knowledge is required to source, evaluate, and manage a world-class golf course in the current market, which is why the DAO is hoping to secure a partner to provide credibility and lead the effort. A partner appears to have been identified, though their identity will remain secret until the appropriate moment. Funding will take the form of <5% of gross revenue generated by the course(s) managed by the partner.

99.3% voted for
See the discussion
View the Proposal

3) Klima DAO: Utilize USDC to Extend Development Runway

🔤 ELI5: Pay DAO contributors partly in USDC to help keep funds in the treasury.

Klima DAO fights climate change by creating an open, decentralized market for carbon. With the wider economy entering bear-market territory, however, bonding inflows have decreased and the value of the KLIMA token — with which the DAO pays contributors — has dropped substantially. Because of this, the Klima DAO treasury could become depleted in the coming months. As modeled by the proposer in the forum discussion, the “current state” runway for the DAO, calculated with several assumptions, is about four months. However, as the proposal notes:

“The DAO should be resilient in the face of prolonged periods of suppressed bonding volume and negative price impact. It is important that during these periods, the DAO continues to build new products and develop the market for ReFi [regenerative finance].”

Shifting the compensation structure for contributors so that it includes a high percentage of the stablecoin USDC in addition to KLIMA (whose value fluctuates) would substantially lengthen the DAO’s runway, the proposal argues. In order to do so, the proposal calls for reserving $1.5M USDC of the treasury to pay contributors. The Core Team may in the future adjust the USDC:KLIMA ratio and will monitor market conditions to determine whether further steps need to be taken for the organization to keep developing even in challenging conditions. See the forum for discussion of important related concerns (cost reductions, organizational roadmap, etc.).