🗳 This Week in Governance - Mar. 2

A weekly resource covering crypto governance, politics, and power.

Duncan Dobbelmann

Mar 2

📣 Key Points

Optimism introduces the Superchain
GFX Labs leads Maker delegates to increase GUSD incentive
Element unveils Council Kit

Voting Activity (L7)
🗳️ 72,394 ballots
👥 23,800 voters
📜 240 proposals
🌐 75 active DAOs

Let’s get into it 🔥

🗞 News Brief

Optimism introduces the Superchain

Optimism last week announced the Superchain, which “seeks to integrate otherwise siloed L2s into a single interoperable and composable system.” Arguing that “nobody has truly scaled Ethereum” yet — and that no single chain can — Optimism says that it’s “time to build together, not apart.” Using the OP Stack, which is open source and prioritizes decentralization, security, and governance, anyone can create an L2 — just as Coinbase has done with Base, which was announced in tandem with the Superchain framing.

GFX Labs leads MakerDAO delegates to increase GUSD incentive

In January of this year, we wrote about the conflict at MakerDAO concerning the renewal of its partnership with Gemini, which had provided a 1.25% marketing incentive to the DAO for stimulating DAI’s GUSD Peg Stability Module (PSM). The vote to renew the partnership passed with a very slim majority, even with Gemini increasing its incentive to 1.5%.

At the time of the vote, GFX Labs proposed a temporary working group “to adjust expected rewards upwards and downwards with the yield on the underlying portfolio” backing GUSD. GFX Labs last week announced that this group had worked with Gemini to settle on a 2% marketing incentive, beginning next quarter. GFX Labs wrote in the forum: “This is a good example of your delegates and core units rolling up their sleeves and finding a compromise where everyone is better off than before.” Questions about the partnership continue to be raised, however.

Element announces a new governance interface and Council Kit

Element, the “open-source protocol for fixed and variable yield markets,” has introduced a new governance interface, built on top of Council Kit. Council Kit is a set of soon-to-be-open-sourced tools created by Element and designed “for any DAO to easily deploy on top of the Council Protocol smart contracts.” Element’s interface includes easily accessible information about proposals past and present, voting and voter power, and more — but other DAOs can easily develop according to their own needs since Council Kit is “a complete and modular governance system.”

📚 Good Reads

Some personal user experiences, by Vitalik Buterin
Decentralized Governance and Digital Asset Prices, by Ian Appel and Jillian Grennan
A Science-Based Approach to Community Building, by Ashish G in State of the DAOs
Community Health - An Imperative for Web3 Communities, by RnDAO for Realizing MetaGame
Governance Delegation in AMMs, in the Velodrome Development Journal
An introduction to “Governance as Conflict,” from BlockScience
Nouns DAO and the Philosophy of Governance, by 0xBobateas in the Stanford Blockchain Review

Forums:

1inch: Grants Review Council
Aave: Safety Module - Governance Impact
BanklessDAO: Swapping Multi-Signers
ENS: Unstoppable Domains Patent
Euler: Increase Snapshot Quorum
Index: Metagovernance Organization and Delegation
Ooki: DeFI’s most significant legal victory to-date validates the DAO rope-a-dope strategy
Optimism: Agora (vote.optimism.io) Feedback Thread
Paladin: Protecting Paladin’s Contracts
ShapeShift: Amendment to the Conflicting Votes Section of the FOX Governance Process

🧵 Threads

DAO governance and chatGPT, from BanklessDAO
A couple of months ago, I got my haircut by Chase Chapman

🎧 Listens

oSnap and the Future of Multi-sigs, with Snapshot and UMA
Current State & Future of DAOs w/ Linda Xie, on Syndicated Talks
Jaya Klara Brekke: Decentralizing Power, Market Failures, and Token Economics, on Mindmeld
The State of the Nation, from CityDAO

📜 Highlighted Proposals

Migrating 0x Protocol to On-chain Governance

View the discussion

0x protocol, the self-described “liquidity endpoint for DeFi” on multiple chains, has initiated a proposal to migrate to on-chain governance, following its roadmap. While the community-owned treasury is already governed on-chain, the protocol itself is governed off-chain. The plan is to move to a system based on Compound governor so that 0x can “serve as the credibly neutral and uncensorable open standard for the global exchange of value” in a fully decentralized way.

👥 Type: Forum discussion
✍ Author: Eric Wong

CB Recruitment — Head Chef Remuneration [Signal]

View the proposal

This community signal vote is intended to get a sense of whether and how the DAO will honor the remuneration package that was offered to CB Recruitment for helping to find Sushi’s next Head Chef (Jared Grey was ultimately selected). CB Recruitment specified three different ways in which it could be paid, each totaling $100k. The signal vote includes those three options — as well as abstain and “no remuneration package” options. The latter currently has 27% of the vote.

✅ Voting started Feb 24
⏰ Voting ends: March 3
⚡ Type: Snapshot Vote
💬 Read the discussion
✍ Author: Sushi (sushigov.eth)

Temperature Check: Create Accountability Committee

View the proposal

This proposal from Other Internet to create an Accountability Committee for Uniswap is currently in the temp-check phase to determine the inaugural five committee members (who will serve March-August 2023). Among other things, the committee is intended to “facilitate the operational autonomy of the [Uniswap] DAO.” The maximum estimated compensation budget for the half-year term is $82,500. This Snapshot proposal uses approval voting, which allows the voter to select as many options (candidates in this case) as they would like; the five candidates with the most votes will serve on the committee.

✅ Voting started Feb 24
⏰ Voting ends: March 3
⚡ Type: Snapshot Vote
💬 Read the discussion
✍ Author: Laura Lotti (Other Internet)