🗳 This Week in Governance - May 4

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

May 04, 2023

Uniswap implements Agora voting portal, starts first Delegate Race
Aave sets initial parameters for GHO, considers GHO facilitator process
Aragon DAO reportedly subject to major dissension

Voting Activity (L7)
🗳️ 185,591 ballots
👥 45,031 voters
📜 294 proposals
🌐 85 active DAOs

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🗞 News Brief

Uniswap implements Agora voting portal, starts first Delegate Race

The Agora team has built a voting interface for Uniswap, which went live on May 1. Much like the portal created for Optimism, the Uniswap portal allows UNI holders to vote and delegate with an integrated platform that provides all the necessary information about proposals and delegates. Simultaneous with the portal launch is Uniswap’s first Delegate Race, which dedicates the next month to onboarding delegates to the new portal so that “new and existing delegates can focus on bootstraping delegation” while “token holders focus on reviewing and re-allocating their delegation.” Delegate profiles should be established on the Agora portal, where they will be visible to potential delegators. The process will be “anchored” by 8m UNI that have been set aside to be delegated to participants over the next month. The intention is for this delegation reset of sorts to occur annually.

Aave DAO sets initial parameters for GHO stablecoin, considers GHO facilitator process

In a Snapshot temperature check recently concluded, the Aave DAO indicated its preference for the initial parameters for GHO: After forum discussion, nearly 62% voted for Option A, which specifies a Borrow Rate of 1.5% and a Bucket Capacity of $100m among the four initial parameters. This week also saw a request-for-comment posted in the Aave forum proposing the process for onboarding GHO Facilitators, which are entities (e.g. the Aave V3 Ethereum Pool) that can “can trustlessly mint and burn GHO tokens through various strategies.” Given turbulence in the stablecoin markets over the past year, these considerations are especially critical for GHO ahead of launch.

Aragon DAO reportedly subject to major dissension

As reported by CoinDesk, Aragon, the organization that provides “the most user-friendly tech stack for DAOs,” has had to ban six or more members in its Discord due to what an Aragon spokesperson called a “coordinated” attack consisting of “probing” questions” and involving “inappropriate language.” This happened during a discussion the Aragon DAO was holding concerning what CoinDesk describes as “a pivotal but long-delayed effort to move Aragon’s sizable treasury [~$70M] under community control.” The banned members were apparently questioning Aragon’s leadership and whether or not Aragon was a true DAO.

📚 Good Reads

A DevOps Interpretation of DAOs, by 0xJustice.eth
Nigeria: Crypto Utopia? by Alex Stein
DAO on-chain voting: Myth or Reality? from Dexe.Network
I am Moloch; Am I Moloch?: On the Ontological Stakes of the Moloch Meme, from The Pluriverse
Decoding Decentralization: An Ethereum Blockchain Data Primer: Part II, from Alexander Sack
Understanding Governance Contracts, from Kenechukwu Eze
An interview with a DAO money grabber, how they are draining treasuries, by Makoto Takahiro in DAO Times

🧵 Threads

Questions and thoughts about shared sequencers, from kydo
Blind delegation, a thought experiment from Evan of Outlier Ventures
Competing visions at RnDAO, by Daniel Ospina
What to do about scam proposals, from Snapshot Labs

🎧 Listens

The Memetic Tribes of the Meta-Crisis with Brandon Nørgaard, on Green Pill
The Network State: What it Gets Wrong + Alternative Models w/Josh Dávila, on On the Other Side
Building for Emerging Nations w/Cami Ramos, on Rehash
Oxcart and the Metagovernance Project, on Gitcoin Radio
Reflecting Your Identity with Disco — Evin McMullen, on UFO
Anoma, Namada, and the State of Privacy in Crypto w/ Christopher Goes on I Pledge Allegiance
What the Golden Age Pirates Can Teach Us About the Future of DAOs with Jon Alexander, on RnDAO Talk

💬 Forums

1inch: Recognized Delegates Program

The proposal suggests a 6-month trial of a Recognised Delegates Programme for 1inchDAO to reduce the collective cost of governance and increase the efficiency of the governance process. The Recognised Delegates will be elected, paid positions of qualified 1inch DAO members, and will be compensated based on their minimum participation and performance, with a fixed compensation of $4000 in USDC each month for all eligible delegates meeting the minimum eligibility criteria.

Aave: Private Voting for Aave Governance [2-month Trial]

This proposal suggests implementing a two-month trial of shielded voting, a feature that would allow voters to hide their votes during the voting process and reveal their choices after the vote concludes. The trial period can be reverted at any time, allowing Aave to assess the efficacy of shielded voting and serve as a leader for governance in other DAOs in experimenting with new mechanisms.

Arbitrum: Foundation Transparency Standards

Messari has proposed industry standards for transparency and reporting in DAO-governed Foundations, specifically, the Arbitrum Foundation. They suggest the Foundation should publish semi-annual progress reports, a comprehensive annual report, and disclosures about operational and financial matters.

Balancer: [BIP-281] Year Two Funding Proposal for the Foundation

This proposal seeks funding for the Balancer Foundation for year two. The proposal specifies the expenses and reserves for four quarters, effective from April 2023 to March 2024, with quarterly payments from the DAO, and includes line-item-specific budgets with minimal estimates.

dYdX: Harvesting Synergy: The Role of Representatives and Contributors

This post explores the importance of community building in decentralized protocols. To cultivate a thriving community, it argues it is crucial to incentivize contributors by recognizing and rewarding their proactiveness and execution.

ENS: Establishing a Fair and Transparent Conflict Resolution System

This proposal suggests establishing a fair and transparent conflict resolution system for the ENS DAO to address disputes and disagreements internally and professionally, mitigating the risk of public disputes and preserving the integrity and public image of the ENS protocol.

Optimism: Inflation Adjustment Proposal (to 0%)

This proposal suggests setting inflation of $OP's total token supply to 0%, with the total supply remaining at 4,294,967,296 OP, as a symbolic gesture to signal that reducing 2% when circulating supply inflation is 50%-270% is negligible.

Paladin: Treasury Management #6

Proposal to deploy an OHM-PAL pool on Arbitrum in order to allow smaller holders to access PAL at a lower transaction cost and to grow liquidity ties with Olympus.

RocketPool: What Happens in Case of SEC Attack

The author expresses concern about the potential for regulatory or criminal action against Rocketpool and other ETH staking providers, and questions how stakers will be able to withdraw their funds in the event of an attack, given the complexity of the smart contracts involved.

Soft: Initiate Voting While Vesting

The proposal aims to update the current Governor contract of Soft DAO to allow voting while vesting for community members receiving SOFT distributions and enable the 2x voting power multiple on tokens in the relevant distributor contracts, which is necessary for Soft DAO’s governance to function as intended.

📜 Highlighted Proposals

Friends with Benefits: System Upgrade: Establishing a Software Company

This proposal puts itself forward as the first step in a two-step process to “upgrade FWB’s organizational and legal structures.” While the proposal describes all of FWB’s activities to be “symbiotic,” different pursuits have different needs. Step one of the organizational change initiated by this proposal would “establish a new Software C-Corp that strives to create expanded use cases for the $FWB token.” Step two would “wrap the FWB Community DAO in an Unincorporated Nonprofit Association (’UNA’) that serves as the parent entity of the FWB ecosystem.”

⏰ Voting ended: May 2 ⚡Type: Snapshot ✍ Authors: Jose Mejia, Mike Bodge, Hirad Sab, Dexter Tortoriello 🗳️ Outcome: 85% “Yes”

Tornado Cash: New Dev, Plans for Project Development and Remuneration

“The Tornado Cash project is in limbo,” this proposal begins — and proceeds to list all the reasons why, including the OFAC sanctions that were issued in August. The proposer details their prospective services as a developer to resuscitate the project, and suggests compensation of $30k (in TORN) per quarter, plus $6k for expenses. The proposal itself was posted in two languages in what appears to be a newly created forum.

⏰ Voting ends: May 8 ⛓️ Type: onchain 💬 Read the discussion ✍ Author: Theo

Seed Club: The Consumer Crypto Accelerator Funding Proposal

Seed Club is known for having provided significant funding to DAOs over the past couple of years. This proposal hopes to “broaden the spectrum” with a Consumer Crypto Accelerator that for the first time will provide funding to companies “in addition to DAOs”. As the proposal states, “the Consumer Crypto Accelerator will be focused on finding the best founders who are building at the intersection of culture, community, and crypto.” The proposal asks for $2.5M USDC from the treasury to be dedicated to the accelerator in two phases over the course of three quarters in 2023.

⏰ Voting ended: May 4 ⚡Type: Snapshot 🗳️ Outcome: 100% “Yes”